


The Woes of Young Adulthood

by whoisshe



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Bending (Avatar TV), Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Enemies to Lovers, Eventual Romance, Eventual Smut, F/M, Multi, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:33:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 14
Words: 51,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28275375
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whoisshe/pseuds/whoisshe
Summary: Katara was trying to figure out what a successful semester looked like and how to have it. Zuko was trying to figure out who he was. Neither of them got what they wanted, but in a way, they both did.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 49
Kudos: 77





	1. Comfort Crowd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whooo! Happy New Year! (I was supposed to post this chapter tomorrow, but I was just way too excited).  
> Not only have I been jazzed to post this fic bc this is my first ever au and was super fun to write, but also because I have a beta reader now! Big thanks to the lovely Halie_15x.

Their car drove by the bright streetlights with music playing loudly from the car stereo. Through the backseat window, Katara expected the glow to display people walking around, but there weren’t as many students as expected to see Saturday night on a university campus. Most were probably in their dorms or apartments returning from the break, but it’s likely some of the young adults were at some kind of party going on in one of the frat or sorority houses.

Sokka parked his car right in front of their apartment building and the stereo stopped, making Sokka’s offkey singing cease as well. Katara took off her seatbelt, got out, and shut the door of the blue 2007 Ford Focus Sokka bought the summer before his first year at Ba Sing Se University. 

Suki did the same from the front passenger seat. Suki yawned and stretched from the long drive. “What time is it?” She asked.

Katara pulled her phone out of the pocket of her denim jacket and turned it on. “It’s eight.”

Sokka, who had gotten out of the car and was opening the trunk, spoke, “That’s a half-hour earlier than the time we thought we would get here.” 

Suki smiled, “good job, Babe.” 

They grabbed their luggage from the trunk and Sokka shut it and locked the car. The three of them quickly walked into the building to ignore the brisk February air and chatted about the winter break. Suki came back home with Katara and Sokka for the break between the semesters and they had a fun time showing her all around where they grew up. Gran Gran and Dad adored her like Katara knew they would.

“I knew you would enjoy skiing,” Sokka said to his girlfriend.

Suki nodded, “I’m glad I got to try it. I still can’t believe you’re able to go whenever you want. There was so much snow there.” 

Katara supplied, “There are more places to go skiing and snowboarding up in the north with all of the hills up there.”

Sokka sighed, “I already miss the snow.” It usually only snowed in November on campus, Sokka had made comments in the past about how the lack of snow made him occasionally homesick.

“Don’t worry,” Suki teased, “it will be there when you get back.”

Katara was grateful for the elevator in their tall building was close to the door so that they didn't have to carry their heavy luggage for long. Sokka and Suki continued talking and Katara checked her phone for a text from their Dad making sure they got there okay. The elevator door opened to the floor they all lived on and they walked down the hall, Katara in the lead with the other two trailing behind her. They arrived at the front door of Sokka’s apartment first, Katara turned back to say goodbye and saw Suki and Sokka kissing. Katara figured Suki would catch up with her later and walked further down the hall and around the corner to the apartment Suki and she resides in. 

Katara pulled out her key to unlock and then open the door. The lights were still off, which meant she and Suki were the first of their roommates to get back. 

When Suki approached Katara about living together, Katara was excited. Then, she thought about what sharing a room with the girl having sex with her brother would be like, and Katara suggested they get an apartment with individual rooms. So they moved into the building Sokka lived in. Their apartment was nicer than Sokka’s though, but he had one less roommate. Suki and Katara shared a bathroom and when it came to the condoms under the sink, Katara chose to never comment on them.

Katara walked past the spiral staircase, through the small kitchen and living space, to her bedroom. Suki’s room was also on the bottom floor and their two other roommates’ rooms were on the top level of the apartment. Katara’s room was exactly how she left it. The gray bedding was neatly done, there were photos decorating the wall and string lights framing the ceiling, like most student's rooms. Her room looked plain, simple, and boring compared to Suki’s. She laid her suitcase on her bed and kicked off her shoes into the bin under the bed.

Katara took off her jacket and placed it on a hanger in her closet. She grabbed her phone out of her pocket and texted the group chat they had arrived back safely. Aang didn’t waste a beat to respond with a thumbs-up emoji. She placed her phone down on her desk and began unpacking her large suitcase. Underneath the clothes were the textbooks she bought before she left at the used bookstore near her house. She was lucky to find them there since they were very specific ones about medicine and human anatomy. She picked them up and placed them on the shelf above her desk with the ones she still had from last semester, she would have to look through them tomorrow before classes started on Monday. She still needed to get the rest of the textbooks needed for the term from the university bookstore at some point. On her desk, her cell phone buzzed a couple of times

Sitting on the counter of the frat house’s kitchen probably made him look like a tool, but the party had just barely started and Zuko and the other three didn’t feel like mingling. Instead, they sat there observing everyone who passed by. Sitting on the counter to his right was his sister Azula and their friend, Ty lee next to her. Leaning against the counter on his left-hand side was their other friend, Mai with a solo cup in her hand like the one in his own. He took a slow sip and listened to Ty Lee try to talk over the loud music.

“Actually, someone’s vibes and someone’s aura are very different.”

“Explain,” Mai said while adjusting one of her many ear piercings. Somehow, her monotone voice was able to carry.

“Well,” she set down her can of Mountain Dew, “a vibe is like someone’s emotional atmosphere. An aura is a colorful energy field each person has.” Ty Lee responded. She gestured to each of them. “I know I’ve told you guys before that it changes, but Mai has a nice purple aura, Zuko’s is currently a deep blue one, and Azula, yours is always a bright red.”

Azula’s lips turned upwards into a grin. She turned to face Ty Lee better and the leather skirt she was wearing made a slight sound when it rubbed against the counter. “Everyone assumes you’re some sort of preppy e-girl, but deep down, you’re really a hippie.”

Ty Lee stuck her tongue out and laughed. Mai turned to Zuko and asked what having a violet aura meant and Zuko shrugged. 

Those two guys, Chan and Ruon-Jian Zuko thought were their names, walked toward them. They immediately started talking to Ty Lee. The party was supposed to celebrate the beginning of the semester or whatever according to Chan. Azula said she was going, and the other two girls pretty much seemed to go everywhere together, so Zuko tagged along with nothing better to do. Mai and Azula joined in the conversation with the two guys when he must not have been paying attention. He slid off the counter to go refill his cup and get some chips. Frat parties always had good snacks and what he nicknamed the ‘Beta Male Frat’ was no exception.

Zuko grabbed the plate and reached his hand into the bowl. Someone with a deep voice who was clearly already a little intoxicated began speaking to him. “So what’s the deal with those three girls you were hanging out with.” He burped into his fist. 

Zuko felt himself beginning to get a little irritated. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t tell if they’re close friends or if they’re all secretly dating each other.”

Zuko ate his chips, “I don’t know. Neither of which would surprise me.” He knew the frat guy was about to ask about his chance of having a four-way with them. Fortunately, some guy Zuko recognized from having a class with the previous semester, spoke before the first guy could. It saved Zuko from having to tell the guy to fuck off.

“Zuko, how was your break?”

Zuko was confused about how he knew his name but didn’t mention it because then it would reveal that he didn’t know his. “Fine.”

Zuko didn’t listen as the guy spoke about his own break and thought about the question. His break was fine, but he, like always, wasn’t invited to go back home with his sister and instead just stayed at school.

Katara stood in the kitchen, drinking tap water and reading through the messages in the group chat she missed while finishing up unpacking. Apparently, everyone in the chat decided to have a group movie night at her and Suki’s apartment. Katara finished her drink, put the mason jar she used in the sink, and texted back that she was down, and she had a bunch of popcorn they could all eat to go with the movie.

Without knocking, Sokka, who must have finished unpacking, strolled in through the front door. Katara greeted him with a nod and a ‘hey’. 

He nodded back. “Where’s Suki?”

Katara pointed towards Suki’s room door. “Unpacking. She got back from your apartment like five minutes ago.”

Sokka made a face at her and went to Suki’s door and lightly tapped on it. “Come in,” Suki called out.

Katara walked back into her room to grab a couple of extra blankets that were folded and walked back out with them and placed them on the floor where the corner of the two couches meet. There was a knock on the front door and Katara walked over to answer it and was greeted by two of her closest friends. Toph had the front of her hair in her eyes, her cane in her left hand, and her right hand in Aang’s elbow. Aang was sporting his usual beanie with an arrow in the middle but was missing his two sidekicks. 

“What’s up, Sugar Queen?” Toph greeted.

“Hey, you guys.” Katara smiled and hugged them, then stepped aside and Aang led them both in.

“Where’s Appa and Momo?” Katara asked Aang. He often brought his dog with him everywhere and his ferret was often kept hidden in his pocket, even during classes.

“They’re back in my dorm sleeping.” Aang didn’t share his dorm with anyone, which was probably the only way he got away with having pets. He led Toph to one of the stools at the counter to sit down at. “How was your break?”

“It was a lot of fun, Dad and Gran Gran told me to tell you hi and you should come to visit sometime again.” Katara first met Aang at fourteen while he was twelve when his family came to visit her hometown. His family always traveled a lot and Katara and Sokka got along with him right away. “How was it for you guys’?”

Toph rolled her milky white eyes peeking through her bangs. “Just as I expected. My parents still don’t think I should be here and that I’m too young and too ‘fragile’ as if I haven't been blind my entire life.” Toph grew up in a wealthy family and was homeschooled all of her life. She applied a year early without her parents knowing about it and when they found out, they weren’t happy.

Katara started grabbing a couple of bags of popcorn from the pantry and started microwaving each of them and then opening them to fill two bowls: one for each couch.

“I had a good time. I got to go mountain climbing with my Uncle Gyatso.” Aang said. “Do you want any help, Katara?”

“No, I’m fine. That sounds fun, Aang, and I’m sorry Toph. I’m glad they let you come back, though.” 

Toph waved her hand, “I would have liked to see them try to keep me from coming back.” 

Suki and Sokka came out of Suki’s room and greeted the two new guests with hugs and questions about how the break was for them. Sokka’s phone buzzed from the back pocket of his jeans and he grabbed it to check and see what the notification was. “Haru texted to say he and Teo will be swinging by later and it’s okay to start the movie without them.”

“Tell him that sounds good with us,” Toph responded and Sokka texted his roommates back.

Suki was connecting her laptop up to the tv with the HDMI cable and Katara was finishing up making the popcorn. “Any ideas on what we should watch?” Suki asked. Toph made her way over to the living room and kicked off her sandals before sitting down on the floor in front of one of the couches, leaving her in just her socks. Aang sat down beside her and listed a couple of suggestions.

Sokka sat on the couch and began ordering a half veggie half Hawaiian pizza for everyone on his phone since none of them had eaten dinner yet. Katara brought the bowls of popcorn over and handed one to Toph and kept the other to herself and sat down on the couch Sokka wasn’t seated in. They weren't the most comfortable couches, but they also weren’t the worst.

Suki continued scrolling through Netflix until they decided on some foreign scary movie. She turned the audio descriptions on for Toph and then turned off the lights in the sitting area and kitchen and then sat down on the couch next to Sokka, he put his arm around her.

Katara knew she would probably find the movie boring, but she didn't want to argue and postpone the movie watching any longer. She grabbed one of the blankets she brought out and wrapped it around herself alone on the couch she was seated on.

The party finally started to pick up more and more to be rager-like, but Zuko wasn’t feeling it. He never did. He looked through the crowd of the poorly lit room to find who he came with. They were easy to spot with Mai’s black clothing forming a blob in his vision. He made his way towards them and pushed through the crowd of the students who were dancing offbeat. Ty Lee was giggling and swaying to the music, Azula was talking to Chan, and Mai was on her phone while Ruon-Jian was talking to her about the fraternity or something. 

“Hello, Zuzu,” Azula greeted when she noticed him. “Having fun?” She had a talent for making everything she said sound a little mocking.

“I think I’m gonna head out,” Zuko responded.

“Why?” Ty Lee asked, “you should stay and dance with us,” she twirled her braid and grabbed Mai’s arm, and brought her onto the dance floor with her. The corners of Mai’s mouth turned up.

Azula shrugged, “Alright. See you later.” She joined the other two girls on the dance floor and pulled Chan with her even though he clearly seemed scared of her. Zuko sighed and turned and walked away. On his way to the door, he passed by multiple duos of people groping at each other. He began his walk back to his apartment. He knew he was probably going to drink and so he decided not to drive his cheap motorcycle there. Besides, he lived close enough and the alcohol in his system kept him warm in the frigid air.

He was never a fan of university parties, especially frat ones, so he never really went to them. They contained annoying people who would become so high or intoxicated that their unabashed staring at his scar would become more frequent and noticeable. It also seemed that at those parties the only conversation starter than literally anyone knew was asking what his major was. He would ignore whoever was asking and trying to talk to him until they walked away.

He always seemed to be the only person who hadn’t decided on one yet. His sister was majoring in criminology. Ty Lee, who came to school after working in a circus for a while, was studying chiropractic but also had been offered to work with Cirque Du Soleil when she graduated. Mai’s parents picked her major, which led her to be studying political economy.

Zuko made it to his apartment on the bottom floor of his building and unlocked the door. It was a pretty nice building, though not nearly as expensive as his sister’s. Still, he couldn’t complain because living expenses were the only thing he had to pay for since his father was paying for his tuition. The counters of the kitchen were covered with stuff that didn’t belong to him. It only bothered him a little bit.

Zuko lived with his Uncle since he was thirteen years old, school was the first thing his father had covered for him financially. Since then he had only spoken to his father a handful of times over the phone. Azula introduced Zuko to Mai and Ty Lee when he was in high school and at one point he even dated Mai, but the relationship quickly ended for the better and they stayed friends. Really, those friends, Ty Lee and Mai, were Azula’s friends and he just assumed friendship by association when they first met. He finally moved out of his Uncle’s house when he started university, but he was still close by.

The apartment seemed to be empty. Knowing his roommates, Jet and Longshot, (Zuko didn’t really feel bad that he still didn’t know his actual name), they were probably still out at the party he was just at.

His roommates were fine. A little strange, but mostly just annoying. Zuko didn’t talk to them often. He was pretty sure Jet was dealing drugs but it wasn’t any of his business. When Jet, and by extension, Longshot, found out about who Zuko was related to and his family’s company, they started speaking to him even less. This happened during the previous semester, which was their first one living together. Zuko didn’t think much about it.

Zuko reached his bedroom and turned on the lights. He had the biggest room in the apartment. He didn’t choose it, it was just the one that was left. He took his jacket off and placed it on one of the hooks and went into the bathroom connected to his room to brush his teeth before bed. He changed out of his collared shirt and black jeans into a t-shirt and sweatpants. He stepped over the pile of books and laid down over the covers of his bed and scrolled on his phone, not yet tired.

He sighed and placed his phone down on the desk next to the small fern Uncle gave him as what he said was a ‘house warming’ gift for when he first moved into that apartment. Iroh has been good to him, but with his mother gone, his father was the only parent Zuko had left. He needed him to be proud of him and to be accepted by him. He’d spent so long trying to prove himself to him and nothing worked. He was running out of ideas of what to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y’all enjoyed the first chapter! I hope to update this fic every Tuesday and Friday, meaning that the next update will be 1/5.
> 
> I have a Pinterest mood board for this fic that I will be adding to as I update with some reference pictures and the overall vibe of the story. [You can find it here](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I plan to post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)
> 
> Feel free to leave a comment and maybe even introduce yourself if you’d like, I wanna make lots of friends in the zutara community!


	2. Something, in General

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We made it to chapter two! Thank you again to Halie_15x for being my beta on this chapter.

Zuko always disliked the first week of each semester. He found going over the syllabus to be a waste of time. At least the curriculum didn’t seem too hard in any of his classes. It was only the second day of the semester and his textbooks already felt too heavy in his bag. He didn’t know anyone in any of his classes, but he expected it with how many students attended the university. It was usually that way every semester.

Zuko was sitting on the long couch in the apartment of Mai, Ty Lee, and Azula with his laptop open as he did his homework. Mai was sitting on the other end of the couch he was on, highlighting lines in a textbook. Ty Lee was sitting in a chair in front of the tv playing a video game. Azula was in the kitchen that was big for a student’s apartment, making some lunch. 

Zuko could tell he and Mai had assignments to get done, while Ty Lee and Azula had more lax curriculums that would pick up over time. Azula called from the kitchen and asked if she could have some of Mai’s kimchi. Mai responded with an affirmative hum without looking up from her book. Zuko set his laptop down on the coffee table in front of him next to the black cherry-scented candle that seemed to always be burning whenever he came over. He grabbed a spiral notebook and pen out of his bag and jot down a few notes before stopping. He got up with a sigh and joined Azula in the kitchen and ate some of her chips while she was distracted. When she noticed, she grabbed the bag of chips out of his hands and smacked his hands away. It hurt more than he expected due to her sharpened fingernails. “Why don’t you go to your apartment and study and eat food there?”

Zuko shrugged. He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t feel like studying in his apartment alone. Azula probably rejoiced in his pain.

Azula picked up her plate and walked into the room her roommates were in and sat down in the spot Zuko was sitting in to piss him off. She brought her legs up onto the couch so that he couldn’t sit in the empty spot between her and Mai either. He glared at her and she snickered as he grabbed his laptop and notebook and sat down on the floor.

“Why do you always play that game?” Azula asked Ty Lee, watching the little character run around on the tv screen. 

“Because it’s a game nobody can win at.” Ty Lee responded with a pointed look at Azula, but with a smile still on her face. 

“It’s not my problem that I beat both you and Mai at every other game so easily,” Azula said.

“It’s also such a cute game. The island building reminds me of when we would all go to your family’s beach house on the Island together before-” She stopped and gave a quick panicked look at Zuko. He knew why. They stopped going to the beach house when his and Azula’s mother died. People bringing up their mother never really bothered Azula the way it bothered Zuko. Their relationship with their mother and their father was very different for them.

Even Mai looked up from the book in her hands she was highlighting and glanced at him. He hated it. He felt awkward, just like at the party the other night.

Azula rolled her eyes. “It’s fine Ty Lee, he’s not going to break if you finish the sentence.” She began eating some of the kimchi casually as if nothing happened.

When still no one said anything, Azula rolled her eyes harder and set down her plate. She swallowed the food in her mouth and then spoke. “I like what you’re wearing, brother. I’ve always told you it’s worth it to buy and wear nicer clothing items.”

Zuko couldn’t tell whether or not she was taunting him. Azula had a lot more money than him and she and Ty Lee and Mai had higher-end clothing and nicer clothing than him because they had such wealthy families. For a while when growing up, his Uncle Iroh’s tea shop struggled. Zuko stayed home after graduating high school for a while to help out at the tea shop, which caused him to start university at the same time as Azula, which Azula loved. She always resented being younger than him. When the tea shop had the location change, it grew quickly in popularity.

Ty Lee spoke up. “I like it too! Red is a really nice color on you and Azula, it looks great with you guys’ skin tones.” Zuko had some more expensive clothing pieces the trio had bought him for birthdays and such. He was pretty sure Ty Lee might actually have thought of him as a dress-up doll

“Thank you, Ty Lee,” Azula said with a smirk. “I’m a strong believer that looking good is a kind of power.” She wrapped her dark hair around her left shoulder and picked up her food to continue eating, convinced the tension she found insignificant was diffused.

Azula and Ty Lee continued the conversation, Mai joined in and when an inside joke that was between just the three of them came up, they all laughed and paid Zuko no attention. Zuko indignant displeasure at the fact he somehow didn’t only feel like an outsider in his classes where he didn’t know anyone, but in his sister’s apartment too with the only people besides his uncle and coworkers he associated with.

On Katara’s first day of class, she had some of the root beer and pizza leftover from the previous Saturday's movie night for breakfast. Somehow it was always her that got stuck with the cleanup, at least it gave her something to do. Her classes seemed fine, there didn’t seem to be any sexist teachers she would have to deal with as she had previously. The classes were pretty much filled with the teachers having everyone introduce themselves. Katara liked getting to know people, but everyone always forgot what everyone else said by the next day anyway and she thought it was kind of a waste of class time, especially when so much homework was assigned to make up for the lost class time. She always tried to make it a habit to sit in the front, and she was able to do so successfully. 

Katara had finished her homework due the next day earlier between classes, so while hanging out in Toph’s freshman dorm room, she looked through social media. She was sitting on Toph’s bed, which was never made, with the green bedding and stuffed badger pushed to the side, while Toph sat on her roommate's bed. Toph’s roommate, Meng, made it clear she didn’t like Katara. The girl had once even called her a ‘floozy’. Thankfully, Meng wasn’t in the dorm.

As Katara scrolled, she saw a former classmate’s pictures from a party she didn’t get invited to. “Do people even get invited to frat parties? Or do they just show up?”

Toph was going over one of the large textbooks she had in braille, due to not being able to get it in audio, the rest of them covered the desk she very rarely used. Toph had a lot more textbooks than the previous semester because she recently declared her major as mechanical engineering. 

Toph spoke as she got up and grabbed a bottle of apple juice from the mini-fridge under her bed. “I have no idea. Not many people think a seventeen-year-old who always carries a cane with her would be much fun at parties for some reason.”

Katara smiled at her joke, “their loss.” Katara held a pillow on her lap. It was the fluffy one she sewed for Toph once, Toph loved it and said it reminded her of Appa’s fur. The walls of the room were cement brick painted white that Toph left blank. The only decor was the rocks on her desk from places she had traveled to with the group on their various outings and road trips she kept on her desk, which was a contrast to Meng’s very colorful side of the room.

Toph was seated back on the other bed when her phone buzzed on the ground between them. “Can you hand my phone to me?” 

“Sure,” Katara said and then leaned down to grab the phone and earbuds that were wrapped around it. The screen was completely cracked, but it never seemed to bother Toph. As Katara handed it over, she spoke, “Honestly, Toph. I have no idea how you can even use your phone.”

Toph took the phone when Katara placed it in her hand with an amused expression on her face. “Was that a blind joke?”

“What? No!” Katara panicked and Toph threw her head back and laughed.

With the headphones, Toph listened to the text message and Katara watched as her cheeks tinted pink. “Who texted you?” Katara asked with a knowing smile. It was probably Aang.

“No one.” Toph quickly said. “But, I have plans I have to get to.” She got off the bed and grabbed her cane.

“What are you going to go do?” Katara placed her backpack around her shoulders.

“Me and Aang are gonna go grab some food at that ramen spot,” Toph said like it was no big deal, but there was still a blush high on her face.

“Oh!” Katara responded and then after a pause added, “Is anyone else going with you guys?” She already had an idea of the answer, but she wanted to tease her.

Toph frowned and her tone got a little defensive. She huffed and pushed her bangs back into her face from where they had moved from earlier and had gotten disheveled. “Not sure. It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay okay, I’ll see you later,” Katara said and opened the door, Toph followed her out. As they left in opposite directions, Katara loudly called over her shoulder, “Have fun on your date!”

Toph called back and said, “Screw you!”

Katara laughed and then sighed as she left through the side door of the dorm hall in the direction of her apartment. She passed by the campus gardens and over the small bridges where she noticed a couple holding hands and giggling.

Katara was proud of herself. She was an independent and responsible woman who had never allowed herself to go completely boy crazy when she was younger. She skipped the phase lots of people had when they first get to university where they go out and date all of the time in a desperate need to find a significant other or someone to have sex with, not that she would ever judge someone for their sexual history. Something inside her made her feel guilty for admitting it to even herself, but she felt a little lonely. It seemed both of her closest female friends had a love life and she would spend her time doing homework and binging shows on her laptop and doing not much else. Even her roommates had significant others and they were still strong and independent and responsible women, so that left Katara with just… she didn't know.

She was happy for Toph of course, even if she and Aang had yet to define their relationship as anything official, and Suki and Sokka were great together. It made Katara feel a little envious and as if guys didn’t like her.

Sure, Aang did have a crush on her when they first met but it was awkward due to the very obvious age difference at the time and her viewing him as another brother. His crush had faded completely by the time they met Toph during his freshman orientation as the other person to have skipped a grade. 

Katara cringed at the memory of the time she met and dated Haru the summer before she started her second year of high school. Even though she was the one to break the brief month-long affair off, she still wished it had worked out. All of that changed when a year later he came out and told her he was gay and she was sure to be a supportive friend because she still loved him dearly. She loved all of her friends, but lately hanging out with only them had become a little repetitive.

Katara would have made it to her next class with ten minutes to spare if the teacher in her last class hadn’t kept the class so late. So instead, Katara quickened her pace and made it to her College Writing class across campus with minutes until it was time for it to start. Earlier in the same week, on the first day of class, she had gotten there early as was planned when there were very few students in the room. She had chosen the perfect seat and pulled out her laptop and looked through the class’s planned workload until the class started.

The class was held in what looked to be the oldest building on campus by the way the color was washed out and the way the building’s design didn’t go too well with the rest of the university’s architecture. The classroom wasn’t a normal lecture hall, it was smaller with what looked to be around 30 spots to be seated in, and instead of tables for the students to sit at, there were individual desks. The seats were red and the tops were a gray-beige and matched the walls of the room in color.

Katara spotted the seat she sat in last class. It was in the front left corner of the room and was right next to the large window that overlooked the parking lot below it. Katara was the type of person to pick a spot on the first day of class and stick with it throughout the entire semester. 

Unfortunately, someone was leaning back in the seat and had his long legs in black jeans stretched out. He was wearing a red silk collared shirt, the kind Sokka tried to pull off in the past but failed, and was facing forward, so she saw one side of him, but he appeared to look annoyed. 

There were three empty desks left, two of them were in the back row and one was right behind him. While going around him, she saw the way his dark hair was artfully parted to go up and to the side to be messy but still look nice. Even more, she noticed the large scar over his eye and brow that contrasted with the rest of his. She took a seat behind him and stared at the dark hair on the back of his head and noticed the scar covered the top of his ear. It was obvious it was a burn scar, but her curiosity was piqued as someone who was in pre-nursing before she decided to change her major to biomedical studies.

One last student shuffled into the room and the last empty desk right as the teacher stood up from sitting at the table in the front of the room to begin class. Professor Kwan was a middle-aged woman that looked like she had never laughed once in her entire life. During the last class while people were introducing themselves to each other, she corrected someone’s grammar, the student wasn’t even speaking to her. Needless to say, she took speaking and literature very seriously. She took the roll and Katara listened and took note when the guy seated in her preferred seat said he was there. Zuko was his name.

The professor followed roll with a lecture on emotions vs. logic in writing and spoke so fast Katara had a hard time following along quick enough to take notes and made the typing on her keyboard louder than it needed to be. From the same sound coming from all around her, other students were facing the same issue. The guy in front of her was taking notes in a spiral notebook and a pen, Katara wondered if it was more effective speed-wise or less.

“Did anyone have any troubles turning in the assignment online last night?” The professor asked. The students shook their heads no. “Would anyone who thinks they did a good enough job like to read theirs out loud for everyone?”

The assignment the night before was pretty simple, Katara was able to get it done in less than an hour. It was a continuation of the last class when the teacher had said, “If you get one thing out of this class, I hope it is that you will learn to truly argue and persuade the reader in each essay you write.” Professor Kwan assigned each student to write a short argumentative essay stating their opinion on one of the assigned list of topics. It didn’t require any research or any source citing, it just had to be in MLA format.

Someone on the other side of the classroom from Katara raised their hand. The professor called on them and they read out loud their essay on the country’s prison system. As the student read their writings out loud, Katara found herself disagreeing with everything the student said, but she had never done much research on the prison system.

After the student finished reading their essay, the teacher spoke, but after a solid four seconds of awkward silence with the students looked around while she was clicking away at something on her computer. “Thank you for sharing. Now,” She turned and looked at the clock on the wall behind her and then turned back, “Since we have about fifteen minutes left, I want you to partner up and discuss your argument with someone sitting close to you.”

The people sitting around Katara began speaking to each other, leaving Zuko and Katara as the only ones who weren’t paired off with anyone to discuss their argument with. Zuko was still facing forward, so Katara tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around slowly and Katara saw the scowl from before was still prominent on his face. 

“I guess we’re paired,” Katara said.

She watched him glance around at everyone talking to one another then make eye contact with her again. “Yeah,” He had a voice she wouldn’t describe as deep, but it was rough and very unique.

Katara looked away because the eye contact felt weird and returned her attention to her laptop. “So… what did you think about their essay?” Katara asked, referring to the student who read theirs out loud.

Zuko shrugged, “It was fine.” He still had such a stern look on his face it made Katara question if she had done something to upset him and it made her uncomfortable. First stealing her desk spot and then constantly frowning, he didn’t seem like the most pleasant person to be around.

Katara’s forehead creased as her eyebrows drew together. “You agreed with what was said? But the incarceration system is a mess.”

He rolled his eyes and bit the inside of his cheek. “Whatever. Let’s read our essays.” 

She pulled the file up on her laptop and opened her mouth to start reading when she heard him say, “I’ll go first.”

Katara looked up at him and closed her laptop. He was getting on her nerves.

Zuko’s essay was… interesting. The topic he chose was about if people ever can change. At first from the first few lines he read out loud, she thought he was doing a poor delivery of satire, as the paper went on, she realized he was serious. Katara didn’t usually get this heated on simple debates, despite how opinionated she was, or she at least didn’t think she did, but this time, the little annoyances were adding up and grinding away under her skin.

“People don’t change.” She interrupted his reading.

He looked up at her with one eyebrow raised and a very annoyed look on his face.

“Sure people learn things over time, but not major fundamental core beliefs.” She continued.

He ignored her and finished reading his paper and then shut his laptop and put it in his bag. When he was reading the last part, she noticed his face getting tenser in anger.

“Okay, now you can continue with what you were saying.” His tone was condescending.

“Believing people change is naive thinking at it’s finest. Forgiving someone easily for doing something terrible to you or someone you love can make you a pushover.”

“That’s not true.” He stated and didn’t look at her as he spoke. His voice rose a little bit.

“Yes, _it is_.” She heard her voice rise to match his. She made nonsensical hand gestures as she spoke. “Some people don’t deserve forgiveness and redemption. Sometimes there are just shitty people.”

He turned his head and looked at her back in the eye, “Weren't you the one who said they disagree with the way criminals are treated? Where’s your consistency?”

“My consistency? What? You think prisoners deserve to be treated like animals-”

“I never said that-” He probably wasn’t this invested in the topic when he wrote the essay, but he seemed easy to rile up.

“But you think people should be set free with no consequences-”

“I never fucking said that either!”

“I didn’t picture you to be such the sensitive type.” She mocked. She knew that insult was a low blow and was hypocritical. There was nothing wrong with being sensitive, but something inside her liked that she was making him as mad as she was.

She noticed his gold eyes and how they looked like they were on fire. He looked like he wanted to argue more but one glance at the clock and he leaned back in his chair facing backward to look at her while they both spoke and argued.

She glared at him as she started her laptop back up. Katara read her short essay on how it is a parent’s responsibility to care for their children and heard him scoff multiple times while she was going through it. At every irritating sound he made, big or small, she hunched her shoulders over more and felt a headache begin in her frontal lobes. She looked up when she finished reading and returned to glaring at him.

“You must have come from a very loving and perfect family.” He said it like an insult.

It was true. She did. There were times her father had to travel away a lot when she was younger, but her Gran Gran always took care of her and Sokka when their dad was away. 

“That doesn't have to do with anything. “

He didn’t comment, instead, he said, “Forcing a parent to care for their child if they don’t want to is unjust.”

“What makes a family is love. What kind of loving parent wouldn’t want to care for their chi-”

“No, what makes a family is their duty to one another! That and their loyalty!!”

“Then it’s the parent’s _duty_ to care for their child!”

Their argument continued with them flying insults back and forth. The things Zuko said became personal and stung, so she retaliated with full force. “I feel bad for your family if you act like this all of the time.”

His eyes narrowed even further and it was as if she could see smoke come out of his ears. She saw the pen in his fist be gripped harder as he snarled.

The big hand on the clock reached twelve and the teacher dismissed the class. Katara stormed out and didn’t look back to see if that rude guy was storming out as well right behind her.

Katara went to the school’s campus library to try to cool down and study. It was a pretty nice library, Sokka told her he went there all the time during his first semester. It was a big four-story building with large windows and in the evenings there was a large owl perched on the entrance’s overlay, which was creepy, but also easy to ignore. There were various offices, study rooms, and tutoring centers on each floor, and as well as shelves of books, there were computers, tables, and desk cubbies for students to use, but Katara rarely used those places to study.

She smelled the usual subtle aroma of window cleaner and copy paper and walked around a couple of tall bookshelves to the corner to go to her favorite study spot. For some reason, the library not only had four elevators but three main staircases. One of the staircases was in a long hall probably meant to be some sort of emergency exit, but there wasn’t a sign labeling what any of the doors to it were, so it went unnoticed. 

When Katara first stumbled upon it, she enjoyed the cool air and how it didn’t seem to ever be used and it quickly became her favorite studying spot where she could sit on the staircases and be alone. She walked up the flights of stairs to get to the top staircase landing. The location was ideal because she had a good enough wifi connection and when someone did use the stairs, she would always hear it due to how loud and heavy the doors were. She dropped her bag next to her and sat with her back against the door that went to the roof the custodian frequently forgot to lock.

Katara took calming deep breaths and gave the memories of the argument with the jerk in her class one last good roll of her eyes. She unzipped her bag and pulled out her laptop and began to fill out the Google Excel Spreadsheet assignment and played music from her earbuds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone should see if there’s a hidden staircase in their campus library... unless we go to the same university, because that’s my secret study spot, lol.
> 
> The next update will be on January 8th.
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	3. Gives You Hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again to the lovely Halie_15x for being my beta. You a homie.

Living so close to his guardian while attending university was probably lame, but Zuko secretly was glad his uncle was so close by. His uncle’s house had a wooden floor and a spacious backyard. When Zuko first moved in at the age of thirteen, he thought the place was too small, especially compared to his father’s home. Now Zuko viewed the house as homely and nice.

Zuko sat at the square table while his uncle, Iroh, was in the connected kitchen. Iroh had invited Zuko over for an early dinner on the phone the previous night. After his classes, Zuko rode the cheap motorcycle Iroh taught him to drive when he was seventeen to his Uncle’s house.

Iroh came in carrying two bowls of soup. From the ginger aroma, Zuko could tell it was his favorite kind. Iroh used to make it all the time when he was younger.

As he got older, Iroh’s gray hair thinned more on the sides of his bald head and his belly had gotten bigger and rounder. His beard was long and he would style it in different ways. Over the years, his warm smile had stayed the same.  
  
Iroh set one bowl in front of Zuko and set the other bowl in front of the chair across from him. Zuko picked up his spoon, ready to begin eating. “Careful, Nephew. You may want to blow on it so you don’t burn your tongue.” Iroh said.

Zuko followed his uncle’s instruction and Iroh went back into the kitchen to retrieve the pot of hot tea. Uncle’s tea was always amazing. He had experimented with making new recipes since before Zuko could remember. When Zuko was fifteen, Iroh opened up a tea shop and named it The Jasmine Dragon and Zuko began working at it as a server right away. He attempted multiple times to make tea himself, but it always tasted terrible. Iroh would always sugarcoat his response after each sip.

Zuko still worked at his Uncle’s tea shop. It was relocated when he was seventeen to a location that was even closer to campus. Zuko enjoyed working there, although he would never tell his uncle that. It was always good to have extra cash and the customers seemed to always tip well. Besides, he never really had anything else to do with his time. The only people he talked to besides his uncle were Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee.

Iroh poured them each a cup of warm tea and then took his seat. He took a sip of the drink from his cup and then spoke. “How have classes been going?” Iroh asked.

Zuko swallowed the spoonful of hot soup. “Okay.”

“Have you made any new friends in any of them?” Iroh asked. 

“Ha,” Zuko responded. _‘The opposite, actually.’_ Zuko thought to himself and his mind played out the scene in his writing class earlier that day with a girl who kept bitching at him. “No.”

“That’s alright, the semester has only just begun. Remember, a friend at hand is better than a relative at a distance.” Iroh responded, always the optimist. “Have you seen Azula at all since she returned from the break?” Iroh asked.

“Yeah. I’ve seen her a couple of times.” Zuko responded. Azula’s relationship with their uncle was much different from Zuko’s. Even since starting attending the university the previous year, she only visited the tea shop twice.

Azula had always viewed Iroh as some silly and ridiculous old man who was a shell of what he once was. Part of this was due to Iroh’s personality and obsession with tea, sure, but most of that belief stemmed from Azula’s relationship with their father and Iroh’s younger brother.

Ozai, Zuko’s father, looked down on Iroh. Iroh was the one who was originally supposed to take over the large and increasingly wealthy business named Comet Corp. from Zuko’s grandfather, but Iroh gave it up to live a more simple life. It was something that from what Zuko could remember, Ozai always thought his brother was an idiot for doing so.

“Uncle, have you spoken to my father recently?” Zuko asked.

Iroh brought his eyebrows together and paused in bringing his cup up to his mouth. “I haven’t. Have you?”

Zuko shook his head. “No, but I plan on trying to call him again tonight.” He was always left on voice message for one of his father’s secretaries to answer. Even when he called him hundreds of times those first few months after getting kicked out. Even just to ask what he did wrong and what he needed to do to go back to living with his father and his sister.

Iroh set the teacup down without taking a sip. “Nephew, I know I have told you before and that the words are probably getting old to you know, but you don’t need your father’s approval to be a good man.”

Iroh continued with his recurring speech about Ozai. Like always, Zuko didn’t listen to it. Iroh was always giving Zuko advice on different things as he would his own son. Iroh had his own son and wife once. His wife died in childbirth and his son passed away when Zuko was young due to circumstances Zuko never learned. He could have asked his uncle, but he didn’t think it to be polite to bring up the painful memories for him.

His uncle must have noticed him not paying attention because somewhere along the way, because he started reciting one of his favorite jokes, “and the first man responds by saying ‘leaf me alone, I’m bushed!’” Iroh’s belly shook as he laughed.

When Katara got back to her apartment after studying, she was greeted with a delicious smell coming from the kitchen. Suki was there wearing green athletic shorts and a gray knotted tank top with her short light hair half up in a messy bun. She appeared to be making food for a meal too early for dinner, but too late for lunch in her rice cooker and on the stove. Katara sat down across from her in one of the bar stools at the island counter.

“Hey,” Suki greeted, “Want some stir fry?”

“Yes, please.” Katara set her backpack down on the counter beside her.

“It’ll be ready in five-ish minutes,” Suki responded, she was playing music on her phone and adjusting her nose piercing.

Katara was usually the one who would cook for her roommates and friends, but it felt nice whenever she got back to the apartment and Suki offered her some of the food she made.

“Do you want any, Song?” Suki called out. Katara didn’t even notice their roommate sitting on the brown couch, poetry book in hand with her shoes and bag placed beside her on the ground, munching on an apple.

“No thank you, I have to leave for work in-” she checked her wristwatch, “Fifteen minutes,” Song responded. “Thank you for the offer, though.”

Song was super nice and worked as a receptionist at the student healthcare center, she was studying pre-med to become a doctor like her mom was and was a year older than Katara and the same age as Suki. Katara and she had a biology class together the previous year with Professor Yugoda and had gotten to know each other well. She tried to convince Katara to work at the student health center with her, but Katara declined, wanting to not have a job distracting her from schoolwork, but she promised she would look into it the next semester.

“How was the gym?” Katara asked Suki.

“Good. Sweaty. You should come with me tomorrow, you would enjoy MMA club.”

Katara nodded, “I’ll think about it, we’re still on for yoga on Sunday, right?”

“Of course, how was class?” Suki asked. She added more olive oil into the hot pan and the sizzling got louder and the smell got more potent.

Studying at the rarely used staircase had calmed her down, but Katara felt herself getting heated again and she gave a deep sigh. Suki noticed and quirked her left eyebrow up with an amused expression on her face. “There’s this one guy,” Katara started.

“Is he good-looking?” Suki asked.

“I don’t know, I didn’t pay attention,” she lied, “He was kind of insufferable. First, he sat in my spot.”

“It was the second time you had that class. How did you already have a spot?” Suki asked. She grabbed two bowls from Katara’s dish cabinet.

Katara ignored her question, “And then we had to debate a couple of topics and every single one we fought each other on. Not disagree: _fought_.” Katara rubbed at her temple.

“Oh, that’s annoying,” Suki responded, all previous playfulness gone. She checked the rice and then turned the timer on for another minute.

Katara lifted her head and flexed her wrist the other way while talking. “It was like he was taking everything personally, and sure I probably was more stubborn about each topic than I needed to be,” Katara knew that was an understatement, but she chose to not include that, “but Zuko always looked so pissed off and was explosive at the end of it.”

“Wait, ‘Zuko’?” Song asked as she threw her the apple core away in the wastebasket under the counter. “Did he have a scar on the right side of his face?” She returned to the couch and began putting on her shoes and then pulled her dark hair back into a low bun.

“Yeah, he does. Do you know him?”

“Kind of, I’ve seen him around campus. A couple of years back he came into my Mom’s clinic and I was working at the front desk. His uncle had eaten something poisonous and was all swollen. He was pretty demanding and raised his voice when I said there would be a wait.”

“Sounds like a jerk.” Suki placed a bowl of food in front of Katara, but she didn't bother picking at it yet.

“I didn’t get to know him too well, but he really doesn’t seem like a bad guy.” Song insisted as she stood up and placed her leather bag around her shoulder. Those words didn’t matter, from the bad first impression and Song’s story, Katara already made up her mind about him.

“Good heart. Bad temper.” It was the last thing Song said before she left through the front door with a wave.

“Eat,” Suki said as she pushed the bowl closer to Katara. She had walked around and sat on the stool next to her.

“Thank you,” Katara responded and took big angry bites of her food.

Zuko sat in the small back room of his uncle’s tea shop at the table with his laptop open while doing his Introduction to Philosophy homework. He was beginning to regret picking some of the classes he was taking. He didn’t feel like changing his schedule, so he decided to stick with the ones he had until the end of the semester. He was checking his notes from one of his spiral notebooks and using them to type up his answers for the assignment.

He looked in the corner of his laptop screen and saw it was about time for his shift to start. He closed his laptop, put it in his backpack, and left his bag on the table as he got up. He went to the row of hooks on the wall and grabbed his apron and tied the green fabric around his waist after placing it over his head. He pulled his phone out of his bag, put it on silent, and placed it in the pocket of his apron. He walked out of the room and into the connected kitchen.

“Hello again, Nephew. How was doing your homework?” Iroh said. He had greeted Zuko when he first arrived about two hours ago. It was common for the student members of the staff to come early to their shifts and work on their schoolwork. Although Zuko was one of the only ones who almost always did homework in the back instead of at a seating table.

“It was good. I got a lot done.” Zuko answered.

“That’s wonderful news,” Iroh responded. The older man was wearing his apron over a gray tunic. He was brewing a large pot of tea. Zuko reached over his uncle and grabbed a tray to clean up the tables customers had left and picked up their dishes.

Most of the customers that visited The Jasmine Dragon were students at Ba Sing Se University like Zuko was, but some locals who lived in the city came by. Iroh had a knack for remembering all of the customer’s names and turning them into friends. This included an old man that played Pai Sho in the corner. He became a frequent customer back at their old location and when the tea shop moved locations, he continued coming. Iroh occasionally joined him at his table for a game.

There were five employees at The Jasmine Dragon beside Zuko and Iroh. Zuko looked around and noticed the only other person working there that day besides his uncle and him was Ming. It made sense only the three of them were working, it was one of their least busy times on one of their least busy days.

Zuko cleaned up a couple of tables and delivered some tea to customers. He and the rest of the staff didn’t take any orders, the customers went up to the counter to order and pay for their food and or drink. When people walked up to the counter, one of the servers would get behind the register. Zuko also helped with making and preparing the food, but he was one of the only workers who didn't help make tea. He was bad at it. The tea he made always frustratingly turned out to be sour hot leaf juice.

As he delivered a cup of peach camomile to the younger kid seated with their family, Zuko noticed the girl he got in an argument with in class the other day seated at one of the tables across the room. He returned to the kitchen and Iroh handed him a tray with a pot of tea, two cups, a croissant, and a cookie.

“This is for the lady and gentleman seated at table six,” Iroh said. He was humming along to the soft music that was playing.

Great. That was the table she was seated at. He sighed and walked out to deliver the order to her. She was sitting with someone and both of them were going over their textbooks.

He was able to tell she saw him and recognized him when her large blue eyes, which were accusatory that day in class, narrowed.

Zuko never really smiled at any of the customers, but for this table, he was probably frowning deeper than usual.

The guy she was sitting across from still had his back arched reading the textbook in front of him, “Katara, could I use your pen for a second?” He asked the girl across from her.

 _Katara_. That was her name.

“Sure,” she said and handed her pen over to him. She still had her eyes on Zuko.

“Hello,” Zuko greeted. He felt awkward.

The guy she was there with lifted his head and gave Zuko a smile and a quick once over. He had long brown hair and a little bit of facial hair stubble. “Hi.” He said.

Zuko set down the teapot first.

“Thanks,” The guy greeted. He was wearing a white turtleneck with a green collared shirt over it. He matched the color scheme of the tea shop. “Zuko.” He finished, after glancing at Zuko’s name tag.

Zuko set a cup down in front of each of them. Katara was still scowling. It was very awkward, but the guy seated across from her at the table seemed to be oblivious to her contempt.

“Which one of you ordered the sesame cookie?” Zuko asked.

Katara lifted her hand to gesture across from her. “Haru did.”

Zuko set the plate down. Something in Katara’s tone must have tipped Haru off because he went back and forth looking between the two of them for a second. Zuko set the croissant in front of Katara, picked up his tray and the teapot, and walked away.

Zuko returned the teapot to the back kitchen and heard the bell on the front door entrance ring. He went behind the counter and patiently waited as the customer read the chalkboard menu behind him. Besides the customary continuous items, there were new items that appeared on the menu every day.

The customer was taking their time deciding and two other people came in and stood in line behind him. Zuko glanced behind them and watched for a second as Katara and Haru talked and drank their tea. Zuko accidentally made eye contact with her for a split second and she began to glare. Zuko quickly looked away and wondered what exactly that girl’s problem was. The customer was finally ready with their order, so Zuko attended to it.

After fifteen minutes, Zuko returned to their table with the metal teapot to refill their cups. He refilled Haru’s cup first, hoping it would indirectly irritate the girl sitting across from him more.

“I didn’t know you work in a tea shop,” Katara spoke. 

“You don’t know anything about me.” Zuko finished filling Haru’s cup and moved onto hers.

Katara’s eyes narrowed and she pursed her lips. “I know some of your annoying opinions.”

Haru smiled and sipped his tea before speaking, “How long have you worked here?”

“A while. Ever since my Uncle opened the place.”

Haru nodded. “Does your uncle like all types of tea?”

Zuko glanced at Katara who had returned to looking through her textbook. He moved his glance back to the guy who asked him the question. “Uh, I’m not sure, but pretty much I think.”

“Nice. Our friend Aang and I have tried brewing kombucha a couple of times.”

“Nice.” It was silent for a moment and felt a little uncomfortable again so he turned and left.

Zuko changed one of the hanging light bulbs that had burnt out and wiped down a table a family with small children left sticky. Ming and he continued delivering orders to the customers. When another fifteen minutes passed from when he last refilled the cups of Katara and Haru, he returned to serve them more tea. Their books were now back in her bags.

Katara took a sip of her drink and then quickly set the cup down and fanned her tongue. “It’s hot!”

Zuko rolled his eyes. “It’s _tea_.”

Haru gave a quiet snort and Zuko filled his cup.

“I _meant_ it’s hotter than it was before.”

Zuko shrugged, “It’s a freshly brewed pot.”

Katara huffed and blew on her tea before taking a large sip.

“Don’t mind her,” Haru said with an amused tone in his voice and a little smile on his face. “Katara tends to be extra sassy when she’s around attractive men.”

Katara choked on her drink. Some of it sprayed onto the table and a little bit got onto both him and Haru.

“Gross,” Haru said with a laugh. Zuko thanked the moon he was wearing an apron.

Katara was coughing loudly. She pounded on her chest with her fist, but the coughing didn’t let up.

From behind Zuko in the kitchen, Iroh rushed over with a rag and some napkins in hand. “My goodness, Miss. Are you alright?”

Katara nodded while letting out a couple of last coughs before it ended.

Iroh handed Zuko the rag and Haru the napkins. Zuko began wiping up the table.  
  
“Sorry,” Katara apologized sheepishly with her face all pink.   
  
“Oh, it’s not a problem.” Iroh waved his hand with a big smile on his face. “That’s a very lovely necklace you are wearing.”

Zuko opened his mouth to take an annoyed breath and then closed it. That was Iroh: always the charmer.

“Thank you,” Katara responded. She tucked a short baby hair behind her ear that must not have fit into the braided crown her hair was wrapped into. “It was my mother’s.” Her hand moved from her ear to hold the pendant.

“It’s very lovely,” Iroh said.

Zuko left to get the new cups of tea and took their empty pastry plates back with him. He set the dishes down in the large sink and Ming began scrubbing away. Katara flushed in embarrassment as he placed the cup down in front of her.

“Is the first time you two have been here?” Iroh asked them.

Haru nodded, “It is.”

Katara spoke up again, “Our friend Toph recommended this place to us as somewhere to do our homework with really good tea. She was right. She also said she knew the owner well.”

Iroh’s grin grew, “Ms. Beifong? Oh, how wonderful. How is she?”

Zuko finished by wiping down the table and some spots on the floor and refilling their teacups. He grabbed the now dirty napkins Haru had used to clean the tea Katara had spit out off of him. He threw the napkins away and passed by a mirror. It was on his left side and showed the red angry scar on his face. Zuko wondered if Haru was mocking him by calling him attractive or if he was trying to flirt with him.

Zuko continued serving other customers and purposefully didn’t take notice of Katara and Haru’s table until after they left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Zuko angst, but make it *adult*.
> 
> The next chapter is a pretty long one, I believe, but I still hope to have it out on the 12th.
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board (lots of fun reference pictures so make sure you check it out ☺️). [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	4. When You Were Young

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, there’s a lot of important info in this chapter. ;)
> 
> Thank you to Halie_15x who not only beta’d this chapter, but left funny and relatable comments on the doc for me to read.
> 
> Also, thank you to TexasBean for leaving comments on the fic, they made my day!

Katara was thumbing through a textbook, leaning back against the tall shelf it came from, and chewing a piece of fruity gum in the campus bookstore. The place only opened an hour ago, but she wanted to get there before any of her classes started. It was a simple bookstore for the university with all of the school t-shirts and other clothing at the front of the store with various gift items. Behind that were the rows of casual reading books and in the back corner were the textbooks.

“I like your shirt.” A smooth voice came from her left. She looked up, stepped away from the shelf she was leaning against and held the textbook at her side. The voice belonged to a guy— an attractive guy— who was tall, tan, with messy brown hair and a toothpick in his mouth.

Katara glanced down at her shirt. It was her white t-shirt with the word ‘ _FEMINIST_ ’ embroidered into it. She liked that shirt too but was surprised a guy complimented her on it. Honestly, her expectations for men were pretty low sometimes. She raised one eyebrow at him with a smile and responded by saying, “Thank you.”

He stepped closer to her with a smirk on his face and twirled the toothpick with his tongue and teeth. He smelled like cigarette smoke, but it wasn’t nearly as off-putting as she usually found it to be. He moved to lean against the bookshelf in the same spot she previously was in. She got a clear view of his ear bar and the very short stubble on his face.

“I’m Jet.” He said.

“Katara.” She responded. She raised her hand to shake his and cringed internally at her awkwardness.

Jet raised an eyebrow amused and had and still had his smirk on his face. He raised his hand to meet hers and Katara noticed the multiple stick and pokes on his knuckles with what must be personal meanings. She found herself entrapped by his mysteriousness.

He had a firm grip as he shook her hand and then let his hand linger there. Katara was still staring at his hand so she looked up and caught his dark brown eyes looking into her own.

“So what brings you to the student campus bookstore?” Jet asked after eventually pulling his hand away and putting it back into the pocket of his black leather jacket.

“Getting a textbook for my math class,” Katara said and lifted the calculus textbook to show him and then held it to her chest. “How about you?”

He reached down and grabbed a copy of the same textbook from behind him. He took the toothpick out of his mouth this time when he spoke. “The same. You have Shinu as your teacher?”

“Yeah, do you?”

He put the toothpick back in his mouth and Katara watched it go between his lips. “Yeah. He can be the worst.”

“Definitely!” Katara nodded, “Why did he tell us to get the textbook now instead of putting it on the course booklist at the beginning of the semester?”

He shrugged “Which class of his are you in?”

He was so tall, she had to bend her neck back to look up at him. “Calculus One, you?”

“The same as you.” He leaned forward. “How come I haven’t seen you in class?”

“I don’t know. I have his class on Mondays and Wednesdays.”

He nodded. “I have it Tuesdays and Fridays. We should meet up sometime and make fun of Shinu’s ridiculousness and work on some assignments together.”

“Yes, totally! Let’s do it!” Katara said. She inwardly cringed again at her over-eagerness. She felt a heat spread over her face.

Jet tilted his head and smiled by lifting one corner of his mouth at a time and then turning the smile into an open-mouthed one. Jet pushed off of the bookshelf to take a small step closer to her. Katara was smiling back at him, open-mouthed like he was.

“Jet,” They both turned to see a girl with baggy clothing, short hair, and a bandana. “We gotta go, did you get your book?”

“Yup,” He held it up and nodded. “Alright, Smellerbee. Let’s go.”

He stepped towards the girl and turned back to face Katara and say, “I’ll see you around, Katara.”

“See ya.”

He walked away and turned the corner following his friend. Katara saw that the back of his leather jacket had the word ' _FREEDOM_ ' printed on the back of it in white ink. A second after Jet turned the corner, she cursed herself for not getting his number.

Her encounter at the bookstore that morning left Katara happier than normal and her day continued on a good note, even when her teacher kept the class late again it didn’t bug her as much as it did before and she walked to her class at a quick pace. Unfortunately, unlike last time, she ended up being late, but thankfully the teacher was writing on the whiteboard and hadn’t seemed to have taken the attendance yet.

Katara’s mood did dampen when she saw that the only spot open was on the other side of the room right next to her preferred seat- which was being occupied by Zuko again. She couldn’t tell him to move, the class had already begun. Everyone was quiet and since she just walked in, the attention was already on her, at least she didn’t have to worry about not tripping over his legs to get to the seat behind him this time. She also wouldn’t be stuck staring at the back of his head. Instead, she could pretend he wasn’t even there.

She walked over and sat down in the front row in the only available spot, set her bag down beside her on the floor, pulled out her laptop, and set it on the desk in front of her. She crossed one jean covered leg over the other, straightened her back, and opened her laptop.

The teacher turned around and with a tight-lipped smile on her face. “Welcome everyone, now that you’re all here.” She glanced right at Katara.

Katara wondered how she knew she had come in late when her back was turned.

“These will now be your assigned seats. That way, it is much easier for me to do the attendance if someone is missing.”

For the first time since entering the classroom, Katara glanced at the boy sitting beside her and he was glancing back at her. They both frowned and then looked away.

Katara’s eyebrows furrowed and drew together. She always found it dumb when professors gave assigned seats like some misbehaving high school class, this case was even worst though because of who she was assigned to sit by and that it wasn’t in her preferred spot.

Professor Kwan became even more annoying when she announced they would be taking a quick pop quiz on semicolons and for everyone to grab out a piece of notebook paper. She got even worse when she told everyone that once they were done, to hand it to the person sitting next to them to grade.

Zuko didn’t look at her as he dropped his paper on her desk and grabbed hers. The teacher revealed the answers on the overhead projector. Katara grabbed a bright blue pen to grade and noticed Zuko watching her before grabbing out a red pen from his bag. The two of them continued their silence as they graded the other’s pop quiz.

Katara glanced back up at the board and smiled when she realized she got all five questions right and Zuko had gotten four. Maybe it was still a good day, after all. She reported this news to Zuko and he raised an eyebrow at her childishness and said, “At least I can swallow my tea without spitting it everywhere.”

Katara leaned back in her seat, crossed her arms, and glared at him.

“Alright everyone, make sure your name is on your paper and then hand it in.” The professor said and started collecting papers on the other side of the classroom next to the door and walked through each of the aisles.

Katara looked down at the paper and saw Zuko forgot to write his name and he noticed.

“Can you hand my paper back?” He asked and extended his hand.

Katara smiled and squinted her eyes in mock politeness and said, “don’t worry, I got it.”

Zuko huffed and reached for his paper anyway, but was unable to reach over the desk arm when Katara pulled it away. She remembered the simple spelling of his name on his name badge at The Jasmine Dragon and decided to go off course. She wrote it out and held it up to show him the spelling: ‘ _Z O O C O_ ’ 

He flared his nostrils and tried to pull the paper away, but right at that moment, Professor Kwan reached Katara and she handed the paper in with a wide evil grin on her face.

Zuko gritted his teeth and handed Katara’s pop quiz paper when the professor reached his desk next. The professor shuffled the papers and set them beside her laptop at the front table as she began the next part of the lecture.

Katara felt a buzz from her back pocket, so she pulled her phone out to see a text from her dad to remind her to check up on her financial aid. Katara responded with ‘ _will do!_ ’ and noticed her phone was about to die. Thankful she was right next to an outlet, she leaned over and shuffled through her bag and sighed when she realized she must have left her phone charger back at her apartment. She sat back up to see Zuko watching her with a smirk on his face.

He unzipped his backpack and pulled out his own charger, one that would have worked for either of their phones.

Katara sucked on her cheek and watched as he plugged his phone into the outlet beside him where she was going to plug in her own and held up his phone to show it was almost completely charged anyway at like seventy percent while hers was only at twenty. He was still smirking, so Katara, who was feeling even more childish than before, stuck her tongue out at him.

The door to Katara’s apartment got unlocked by the first roommate that woke up and got locked at night by the last person up before going to bed.

Katara was right— she did leave her phone charger on the marble counter of the kitchen island. She plugged her phone into the outlet on the side of the counter before she even set her bag down.

Toph was at the washing machine and clothes dryer and Suki was next to her leaning against the wall. Toph always did her laundry at their apartment instead of at her dorm hall, so they marked the machines for Toph’s visual impairment. Suki grabbed the Tide pods from the highest shelf above the laundry machine and Katara hopped up and sat on the counter right behind them.

“How was your time at the ramen shop with Aang?” Suki asked and nudged Toph’s shoulder.

Toph closed the washing machine lid and turned around, which revealed the bright blush on her face. “Good.” She was wearing a dinosaur shirt that Katara remembered Aang complimenting on her before.

Katara and Suki looked at each other and smiled.

“Anyway,” Toph waved her hand, “Katara, how was the tea shop? Did you get a chance to talk to Iroh?”

“Are you talking about The Jasmine Dragon?” On Ji, Katara’s third roommate was sitting on the couch with her boyfriend, Hide. “I’ve been wanting to go. Is the tea any good?” She handed a couple of Pocky sticks over to Hide. On Ji had her boyfriend over a lot, but that never bothered any of those living there, Katara and Suki’s friends were over practically every day.

The three girls stepped closer to better include On Ji and Hide in the conversation. “Yeah, Haru and I talked with Iroh for a little bit. He’s really nice and speaks poetically.” Katara shifted in her seat to face On Ji better to answer her question. She was wearing her boyfriend’s shirt, which Katara thought was cute. “The tea was really good! The two of you should go sometime for a date or something.” Katara wanted to complain about her tea server, but she held herself back. She would tell Suki about it later.

Hide sat up in his seat and puffed out his chest, “I doubt it was any better than the tea I make.”

On Ji pushed her bangs out of her eyes and pulled the dark ponytail tighter inside her red scrunchie. She tilted her head and rolled her eyes at her boyfriend with a gentle smile on her face. “I’ve tasted your tea. I’m sure the tea at The Jasmine Dragon is way better.”

Hide narrowed his eyes at her and she giggled. On Ji clapped her hands together, “I have an idea! We should all go there on a group date together, like with Sokka and Aang and whoever!”

Hide’s thin lips pulled into a frown. He and Aang didn’t get off on the best foot due to Hide’s jealousy and the misunderstanding of thinking Aang was trying to flirt with On Ji. Really, Aang was nice to everyone.

“That could be fun,” Suki agreed.

“Yeah, it’s about time I go and say hi to Pops again,” Toph responded. She was biting at her nails and was sitting with crossed legs on the couch in between Suki and Katara.

“You guys will have to go without me.” Katara grabbed her water bottle and brought it back with her to the couch.

“Why?” On Ji asked.

Katara shrugged, feeling awkward, and flipped up the straw from her water bottle to take a sip before saying, “Who would I even go with?”

“You should download Tinder.” On Ji said with a sly grin.

Toph laughed and hid her face in Katara’s shoulder and then sat back up.

“That’s actually not a bad idea. It’s a great place for hookups,” Suki offered.

“And dating!” On Ji defended. “Hide and I met there.” She gestured between the two of them. Hide nodded.

Katara took a second to discreetly observe the guy her roommate was dating. He looked like the typical douchebag guy you would expect to see on a dating app. He was tall and muscular and pretty self-righteous, but he also cared about On Ji.

“Are you on any dating apps already?” On Ji asked. Katara shook her head no. “Really? I thought everybody our age used them.” On Ji replied.

“I never have,” Toph said and tilted her chin raised.

Suki raised an eyebrow. “You’re seventeen. I don’t think you can even legally get a Tinder account. Plus you already have a boy at your side.” Suki grabbed the water bottle out of Katara’s hand and had a drink.

Toph blushed and sank deeper into the couch.

“Anyway, Katara,” Suki returned the water bottle into Katara’s hand, “even if you don’t feel like going around and hooking up with a bunch of people, despite it being lots of fun,” Suki wagged her eyebrows, “It’s still a way to meet new people and experience new things.”

Katara shrugged. She didn’t want to admit it out loud, but downloading Tinder and hooking up with strangers sounded a little like a fun thing to try, she wasn’t brave enough and didn’t think she was the type of person who could do it. She always assumed she would meet someone and then fall in love as her mom and dad did.

“Actually,” she said, “there was this cute guy I talked to this morning at the campus bookstore.”

“ _Oooooh_ ,” Toph said with a smirk.

“What was his name?” On Ji asked. She was back to leaning against Hide and he went back to looking at his phone and tuning out the conversation.

“I already forgot,” Katara said, a little discouraged. “I didn’t get his number or anything, but it was nice when he started talking to me.”

“What did he say?” Suki asked.

“He complimented the shirt I’m wearing.”

“What does it look like?” Toph asked.

“It’s a white t-shirt with 'FEMINIST’ embroidered on it,” Katara explained.

“I like him,” Suki said with narrowed eyes and a suggestive smile. “You should try to see him again.”

The front door opened and they all looked up to see Sokka walk in.

“Hey,” they all called out and Sokka tilted his chin back up in a quick nod. He sat on the arm of the couch next to his girlfriend and greeted her with a kiss, which Toph booed at. Sokka said he didn’t understand why Toph was complaining when she didn’t have to see it and the quick-witted blind girl responded by saying she could still hear it, which was even grosser.

Sokka turned his attention towards his sister, “You ready to go?”

“Yeah, let me grab my bag,” Katara answered before getting up to do exactly that. Sokka was going to drive her to the store to do her grocery shopping. She could have asked someone else to drive her or have taken the bus, but what’s the point of going to university with your older brother if you can’t take advantage of his resources?

“Hey, Babe.” Suki rested her hand on Sokka’s knee. “How was your day?”

“Good. I only had one class today, so once I finished it, I went to my room and finished up homework and hung out until I came over here. ”

“Were you writing your trashy Naruto fanfiction again?” Toph asked.

“It’s not trashy! Naruto and Sasuke are in love, okay?” He loudly bit back. It made Toph cackle.

“So is that a yes, then?” Suki asked.

Sokka waited a moment before quietly answering, “Yes.” 

Suki laughed and rubbed Sokka’s back encouragingly, it helped smooth out his forehead crease and reduce the pout on his lip.

Katara announced she was ready to go and Sokka got up off the arm of the couch and walked with her out the door after saying “see ya later” to the group.

Sokka unlocked the car from the button on his keys when they first got outside, but when Katara went to open the passenger seat door, he relocked it. Katara stuck out her tongue and blew a raspberry at him and he unlocked it again to get into the gray seats.

“Do you need to get anything from the store?” Katara asked as she buckled her seat belt.

“Nah,” Sokka said, he already had his seat belt buckled. He was connecting his phone to the aux cord and pulling up Spotify.

“Ah,” Katara nodded. She knew Sokka would probably end up buying something from the store anyway, shopping had always been his favorite activity.

The music started up and Katara turned the volume down to complain about his choice in music. Sokka rolled his eyes and they bickered until they finally agreed on a playlist to listen to. Sokka pulled out of the parking spot and began the drive.

Katara glanced around the car, “You’ve done a good job keeping it clean since I was last in here.” It wasn’t too big of an accomplishment since they returned from break over a week ago, but still. The only thing in the back seat was the light blue hydro flask Sokka stole from her a while back. She eventually gave up trying to get it back and bought a new one.

“Thanks,” Sokka responded. They stopped at the red light with a jerk, Sokka definitely wasn’t the best driver out there. His driving wasn’t very smooth, but he still was the designated driver of their group of friends. The car continued after the short pause. “Suki and I went out last night so I cleaned up.”

“Fun, where did you guys go?” Katara asked.

“We went stargazing in the park,” Sokka said with a smile and his chin lifted high. He was always proud of himself when he planned romantic dates with his girlfriend. Ever since the two of them met, Sokka has definitely improved as a person little by little. He used to be annoyingly sexist no matter how hard Katara got mad at him for it, then Suki kicked Sokka’s ass and his mind started to change and then he started really liking her.

“Cute,” Katara responded. She watched through the window at the small stops they were passing by. One of them was a tattoo parlor. “I’m thinking about getting a new tattoo.”

“What? Why?” Sokka asked, moving his eyes from the road to glance at her for a second.

“Because I want to,” Katara crossed her arms in front of her.

Sokka turned the music down a little on the car stereo so they could hear each other better as they spoke. “Does Dad know?”

Katara rolled her eyes and uncrossed her arms, “I already have one, or did you forget?” Katara lifted her leg in front of Sokka’s face to show the wave tattooed on her ankle.

“Hey! Don’t distract the driver!” Sokka shoved her leg back down and Katara laughed. “You just got that tattoo last summer and you’re only nineteen.” Sokka was using his tone he used when he thought it was his place to be an authoritative older brother. It was annoying.

“So what? You got your tattoo when you were sixteen.” Sokka’s tattoo was a tribal armband on his bicep, he liked to show it off when the weather was warmer. A lot of people had tattoos where they grew up, their Dad included, with tattoos of arrows and a wolf and what not. Like their father’s, Katara and Sokka’s tattoos also had to do with their heritage and the history of their people.

Sokka looked like he wanted to argue, but he opened his mouth and said, “That’s fair.” 

The car made a sharp turn and it caused them to lean to the side before returning to their former position.

“You don’t have to drive so quickly around corners.” Katara huffed.

“I wasn’t,” Sokka responded.

“You wanna know what tattoo I’m thinking about getting?” Katara asked with an excited smile, she knew Sokka would like it.

“ _‘World’s most annoying backstreet driver’_ on your forehead?” 

Katara ignored him, “I’m thinking about getting a moon, you know, as the ‘mark of the brave’? It’s the mark Bato gave me when we went fishing that time with Aang.”

“Ha! I remember that! Aang hated going fishing with us.”

“Of course he did, he’s been a vegetarian since birth. He started enjoying himself when we started releasing the fish back into the water.”

“Yeah, that’s a fun memory.”

Katara nodded. “So that’s the tattoo I’m thinking of getting, I’m just not sure where.”

“That’d be cool,” Sokka responded.

Despite Sokka’s annoying driving habits, they made it to the grocery store without any bumps or bruises. It was the closest grocery store to campus and it was locally owned which reminded Katara of home.

Katara and Sokka got out of the small car and grabbed the reusable bags from the trunk. Gran Gran was always very particular about using reusable grocery bags while Katara and Sokka were growing up and the good habit stuck.

“Does Haru have a shift right now?” Katara asked as she shut the trunk. Haru worked at the conveniently located grocery store and always seemed to like it.

“I don’t think so, he just got back to the apartment when I left.”

They entered through the sliding doors and as Katara grabbed a cart, Sokka tried on a couple of pairs of sunglasses from the display by the door. Katara brought the cart over and Sokka dropped a pair into it. Looking around, the place didn’t seem to be as busy as usual, but still had a few customers. The walls and ceiling must have been repainted while Katara was visiting home because they were now a light blue instead of the eggshell white they previously were.

“Alright, where to first?” Sokka asked.

“The bakery,” Katara responded as she checked the grocery list on her phone.

A cheesy grin grew wide on Sokka’s face, “ _Bready_ or not, here we _crumb_!”

Katara sighed at his pun, but she still had a smile on her face. She pushed the cart and was glad to hear it wasn’t one of the squeaky ones. The bakery was the closest section to the entrance and as soon as they got there, Sokka picked up a loaf of whole-grain bread and said, “this one appears to cost the _yeast_.”

Katara grabbed it from his hands and placed it in the cart.

“Admit it, you _knead_ me here to help you with shopping. Without me, you’d _rye_.”

Katara put her hands on her hips. “Oh yeah? Well…” She dropped her hands back down as she struggled to figure out what to say. “Your _buns_ are annoying. Get it? Instead of puns?”

“Leave the puns to me, Sis. Your jokes are a little _crusty_.” Sokka snorted from laughing so hard at his joke.

“Whatever, I’m done with this section of the store anyway.”

Sokka was still snorting as they walked to the produce. Katara loaded a ginger root into one of the small plastic bags and tied it, she also grabbed a big back of potatoes and put them in the cart.

“What are you getting?” Sokka asked.

“Just some normal groceries, but I was thinking about getting stuff to make Gran Gran’s stew. I’ll let you have some when I make it if you help me pick out the ingredients.”

“Yes!” Sokka nodded and started to bag up some dried prunes and garlic and Katara grabbed an onion.

They moved onto the aisles of dry food after picking up a carton of eggs and a carton of oat milk, Katara also made sure to grab a bottle of her favorite watermelon juice.

They continued through each aisle and chatted as they went. “Have you decided on declaring a minor yet?” Katara asked.

“Not yet, I’m still trying to decide on what minor goes best with information technology.”

Katara grabbed a package of rice cakes and Sokka threw a package of beef jerky and dried squid into the cart. Katara looked through the grocery list on her phone again and realized she passed by an aisle she needed something from. “Damn. I forgot to grab soy sauce, I’ll be right back.”

“Okay,” Sokka responded, “I’m gonna go get some white chocolate for Suki.”

They both turned to walk away when Katara called back “You take the cart, I’ll only be a second.”

“Fine,” Sokka groaned and pushed the cart with him to the next aisle.

Katara got to the relatively busy aisle and huffed, of course the soy sauce was on the top shelf. Katara wasn’t short, she was average height, thank you very much, unfortunately, the shelves were much taller. Katara stepped closer and stood on her toes and stretched her arm up, but a hand came from behind her and easily reached up and grabbed the soy sauce. Katara saw from the lack of anything behind it, it was the last bottle. She turned around, ready to sweetly ask for it when her smile dropped.

In front of her, stepping back, was her favorite asshole with a grocery basket in his left hand and from a quick glance, Katara saw it contained grapefruits, batteries, wasabi potato chips, and hi-chews.

“Did you also need soy sauce?” Zuko asked.

Katara looked at him and narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I did.”

“Too bad I got it first,” the corner of his mouth lifted and Katara had to restrain herself from childishly sticking her tongue out at him.

“Fine,” she responded, “I’ll use Worcestershire sauce, even though it won’t taste as good.” She turned to grab it, but the store seemed to be out of it too. “Damn it,” Katara cursed under her breath.

Zuko was still standing behind her, watching her with a steely expression, and it made Katara a little self-conscious. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

“Did you see there’s a quiz due tonight?” Zuko asked, “The professor didn’t mention it in class.”

“No, I didn’t,” Katara responded, “What time is it due by?” Around them, other customers passed by them through the aisle.

“Midnight,” he responded, he leaned and grabbed some of the palm sugar besides her head, and from the way, he leaned close to her to grab it, Katara could smell his nicely scented cologne and it made her cheeks heat a little.

“Did you get a chance to charge your phone?” He had a smirk on his face and it felt condescending.

Katara rolled her eyes at him, “Of course I did, my phone almost died on my way back to my apartment with no help from you.”

He still had the bottle of soy sauce in his hand and lifted it to her. “Here,” he said, “You got here before me.”

“Technically that’s not true,” Katara responded but accepted the bottle from him anyway. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” Zuko responded and Katara once again noticed how raspy his voice was. He gave a small wave and said, “see you around.”

Katara watched as he turned around and walked to the self-checkout with a small confused smile on her face. She turned to head back to where Sokka was when she noticed he was at the end of the aisle opposite of the way Zuko headed down and was watching her. “Hey,” She said and put the soy sauce into the cart.

“Why were you talking to him?” Sokka asked. He had a frown on his face. There was the sound of a child crying from somewhere in the grocery store.

“Zuko?” Katara glanced behind her and then turned her head back to her brother, “We have a class together. How do you know him?”

“I know _of_ him. His dad’s business is the one with the people who killed Mom.”

Katara felt the color drain from her face. “Are you sure? His dad owns _Comet Corporations?_ ”

“Yeah, I’m certain.” Sokka was glaring at Zuko now, watching him bag up a plastic grocery bag. “I don’t know if you’ve already become friends with him or what-”

“Don’t worry, we’re far from friends.” She watched him walk out the front doors with a scowl on her face. Suddenly she was hit hard with a wave of missing her mother. Katara’s face tightened up even more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Question: Did you think Jet was attractive the first time you saw the show?  
> A) Yes  
> B) No, but I’m lying.
> 
> That was one of my fav chapters and I’ve been pumped to post it. The next chapter is shorter and should be out by the 15th, but I’ll keep you updated on Tumblr if anything changes.
> 
> I added lots of reference pictures to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I plan to post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	5. A World Alone

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Halie_15x for being my beta fairy. <3

The first thing Zuko always noticed whenever he walked into his College Writing class was it always smelled like coffee somebody had probably spilled. At least it wasn’t the strong defining scent of weed, which was what his apartment smelled like at the moment. Since the entrance door was at the front of the classroom, you could get a good glance at everyone who was already there.

Katara was already there before him which was uncommon. He walked in front of her to get to his seat. She didn’t look up at him as he passed by or when he sat down in his seat. He didn’t know why he expected her to. He didn’t greet her. Instead, he pulled his spiral notebook and pen out of his bag, opened up the class’ textbook, and turned his head to look out the large window on his left side with a frown heavy on his face. Katara didn’t greet him either, which wasn’t strange. With his elbow on the desk, he held his chin in his hands.

He heard the sound of more people coming into the classroom, but he kept his gaze locked on one of the bare trees outside of the window. It was sporting buds that were due to bloom later in the semester. The view was why he changed from the middle of the very back row to this spot on the second day of class. The trees outside reminded him of the Winter Sakura that would’ve been in bloom right then at his father’s home.

The distinct sound of the professor’s heels on the floor brought Zuko’s attention to the front of the room for class to begin. He scribbled down notes throughout the class and didn’t let his thoughts drift away to memories from his early childhood or thoughts of the girl sitting at the desk right next to him. 

Midway through the lecture, the professor assigned an essay on the principles of conceding and told the class to turn to the person sitting beside them to go over any questions they had about the quiz from the other night. He turned in his seat to face Katara. She was staring at the screen of her laptop tight-lipped and with narrowed eyes. Neither of them said anything and Zuko could feel himself start to feel awkward. Then, Katara turned her head to Zuko with an even tighter expression on her face.

“I heard about your family,” she said.

Zuko’s brain stopped working for a moment. What about his family did she hear about exactly? She already met Iroh the time she went to The Jasmine Dragon. “What?” He finally said.

“Your dad’s business: Comet Corp. I know about it.” She looked pissed now.

Zuko felt more confused. This conversation seemed to come out of nowhere.

“ _So?_ ” Zuko raised his eyebrow. He felt himself getting more and more impatient.

“You’re-” She stopped herself, looked around, and then leaned closer to him to whisper. “You're a part of the people who run a greedy business and have a connection to the mafia that do terrible things to innocent people!”

Zuko rolled his eyes and was about to open his mouth when the professor started speaking again. That didn’t bother Katara though. She continued to whisper-yell at him.

“Your dad is a corrupt businessman with way too much political standing than he deserves, who underpays his workers and then hires people to silence and wipe out those who speak out against it, and that’s not even the half of it.” She hissed.

So _that_ was what she was acting so high and mighty about. Zuko could feel his nostrils flaring, but he didn’t care. He leaned in close to her over the arm of his desk, expecting her to return to sitting up straight, but she didn’t budge. “You think you know everything just because of some false rumors? You don’t know my father and you sure as hell don’t know me.”

He saw her fingers grip her desk and she huffed. Zuko watched her chest rise and fall as she was breathing quickly and then returned his gaze up to her eyes which were narrowed and looked lethal. She spoke, “I know enough.”

Zuko felt like throwing something. “Look,” he said and Katara condescendingly raised her eyebrows in a mock listening kind of way. “My family is not a part of whatever you think is going on. You need to watch your mouth when you speak about my family. You sound like an idiot and obviously, you don’t know shit.”

She leaned back but continued to keep a lower volume. Her face was flushed and she was grinding her teeth. “ _You motherfu-_ ”

Sitting behind Katara, a student, who previously had their head down and was sleeping, loudly shushed both of them and returned to having his head on the desk.

Neither he nor Katara apologized. They glared at each other and turned back to the front of the room to pay attention. Their professor looked annoyed with them. From the corner of his eye, he watched as Katara took a couple of deep breaths to calm down and gripped at her necklace.

He remembered her telling his Uncle at the tea shop her mom gave it to her. The heat from their argument stayed with him. What did she know about his family? She was lucky she even still had a mom. Zuko hadn’t even seen his mother for years, she left when he was eight years old and his father had refused to tell him or Azula what happened or where she went, only that she had died. Whenever he brought up trying to reach out to her, his father got mad.

Zuko’s scar felt very heavy on his face at that thought, but he ignored it.

He closed his eyes, took a breath, and remembered his goal. He needed to get back on his father’s good side. He opened his eyes back up. Defending his company and correcting those dumb rumors was a step in the right direction.   
Zuko shifted his long legs in his seat. His foot accidentally touched one of the people sitting next to him’s feet. He and Katara both quickly pulled their feet away.

She had a blush on her face and her brows were still furrowed. Zuko glanced down at the foot he accidentally touched with his own. She was wearing a pair of blue converse and had a multi-colored threaded bracelet around her ankle. He dragged his eyes over to his own feet.

He was wearing white tennis shoes Ty Lee gave him for his last birthday. She lied and said they were less expensive than they were. He didn’t come from wealth as his friends did. Well, he did, but he didn’t have access to it like Azula. His uncle and he lived humbly and were lucky Iroh had so much money saved up from when he worked in the family business whenever they went through tough times. Iroh also wasn’t very materialistic, which Zuko didn’t mind anymore, so most of Zuko’s nicer possessions he bought himself or were gifts from one of his friends who had expensive tastes themselves. 

As the professor went over the same thing for the third time, he heard Katara’s annoyingly loud typing coming from beside him. The girl clearly didn’t like him from the start for some reason and Zuko decided he would try to not let it bother him. The class ended and this time Zuko was the first to leave between them while Katara was still packing her things away.

  
When Zuko finished his classes and got back to his apartment, he started on the essay Professor Kwan assigned. He didn’t expect to be done with it so quickly. It was a simple three-page essay in MLA format that he was able to knock out in one sitting. The only other homework he had was an annotated reading for his Introduction to Sociology class. He had already finished it during a different class while the professor was going over the attendance.

He got up to get a drink of water from the kitchen and when he got back, he looked around the light beige walls of his room trying to think of something to do. He did his laundry two days ago, so the bin he tossed his dirty laundry into was practically empty. The white pillows and blanket were still pulled into a neat position from that morning, so he didn’t need to make his bed. He sighed and returned to his desk and sat back down in the uncomfortable cheap desk chair. He opened his laptop back up and checked his email to see if he got anything from one of his professors or TAs. No new messages. He leaned back and stretched his arms above his head. 

On his desk next to his laptop was a couple of textbooks and a picture of his uncle. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and checked the time. It was a little too early from when he usually had dinner and he wasn’t feeling hungry, so he decided he might as well just head to work early. With nothing better to do, he hopped on his motorcycle and rode off to the tea shop. He entered through the back door and grabbed his apron with the name tag still pinned to it. He tied it around his waist and got lost in his thoughts for a moment.

He had attempted calling his dad again earlier that day, but the only response he got was from either Lo or Li (Zuko was never able to tell which one was which). When whichever one greeted him, he told them nevermind and hung up. It was a painful reminder that he didn’t even have his father’s personal cell phone number.

He finished tying his apron and stepped through the kitchen into the seating area that was decorated in nice sage greens and browns. Unless he was in his office, it seemed that his uncle wasn’t there. It wasn’t that odd. Iroh had pretty much started to come and go as he pleased since he had such a reliable staff. He was still there most of the time it was open anyway. Being at The Jasmine Dragon was Uncle’s favorite pastime and having his tea shop was his dream come true.

There was the expected number of customers for a weekday evening in the tea shop. He noticed there was someone seated at the front counter, which was interesting because it wasn’t often that someone sat there. Customers seemed to usually prefer being seated at one of the round tables, the tables at the couches, or the long thin table in front of the giant window where you could watch the people and the cars in the street.

The girl had loose braids and a septum piercing. She was wearing a layered shirt thing, had a blueberry muffin next to her cup, and had her laptop open. She appeared to be a student around his age, but it wasn’t surprising Zuko didn’t recognize her and probably hadn’t seen her around the large campus before. He noticed her cup was almost empty, so he asked one of the other workers what drink she had ordered and returned to the counter to refill her cup with peppermint tea.

She seemed to be busy at work so all she did was give him a nod and a thank you with a smile without taking her eyes away from her screen. Zuko moved on to take the orders of two older men in the corner playing a round of pai sho. He already knew one of the men’s orders since he came there all the time and almost always ordered the same thing and sat in the corner at the pai sho board. He was right, the man ordered oolong tea as always and the other man ordered a steamer.

When he brought them their drinks and gave them their first refill, it was time for Zuko’s actual shift for the day to start. He went into the kitchen and started on the dishes even though there weren't many to do. He finished them quickly and in time to hear the bell on the front door ring followed by his uncle’s voice.

Iroh went around and greeted all of the staff with a smile and conversed with different customers. Zuko kept up with giving out refills and swept the floor since there weren't any new customers and some of the ones that were there had finished and were starting to leave.

Iroh came up to him and asked about his day. Zuko shrugged and said it was fine. It seemed to always be his answer to that question lately. Iroh said since business was slow, Zuko could go home if he wanted. Zuko declined, not admitting he didn’t have anything better to do.

Iroh seemed to have just noticed the girl sitting at the counter. “Nephew, that young lady looks to be one of the students at the university. You should go talk to her.”

“Why?” Zuko asked.

“No man is an island, Nephew,” Iroh said as he poured himself a cup of ginseng tea.

“Huh?” Zuko responded. Even though his uncle said many of them in all of the years Zuko had been alive, he still had a hard time understanding his uncle's proverbs and the reasons for them.

“You should go and make friends, Zuko. She looks like she’s nice.”

“I’m fine.” Zuko defended. There was a heat on his cheeks he hoped his uncle didn’t notice. Zuko was aware he was too awkward to simply go over and attempt at a casual conversation with her.

Uncle Iroh must have known too because he handed him a teapot and said, “Here, this will give you the perfect excuse to start a conversation with the girl. Now go and refill her cup.”

Zuko took the teapot into his hands and Iroh gave him a small shove in the girl’s direction. Zuko caught his footing and turned to glare at his uncle who was looking away from him and pretending to casually be whistling. Zuko looked around. It appeared everyone else working had gone home for the night.

Zuko approached the girl on the opposite side of the front counter trying to think of what to say to her. He poured her tea and thankfully he didn’t have to think of anything because she actually spoke first.

“Thanks, Zuko.” She said, reading off of his name tag.

Zuko nodded. “No problem.” He stood there. Was this what his uncle wanted?

She lifted the cup to her lips and took a sip and spoke again. “I think I’ve seen you around campus before. I recognize you as that guy with the motorcycle.”

“There are multiple people that attend the university that have motorcycles.” Zuko pointed out.

Jin shrugged with a shy laugh. “You’re the one I seem to see the most often though.”

Zuko now felt a little bad he hadn’t recognized her from seeing her anywhere passing by. Although the giant scar on his face tended to unfortunately make him more memorable.

Zuko glanced over and noticed Iroh watching them. He ignored it. “So, uh, you working on some stuff for classes?”

“Yeah, It’s for my photo editing class. When I thought about this tea shop, I thought it would be a lot better to do stuff here instead of back at my place because my roommates can be crazy loud.”

“Same,” Zuko responded. It was a lie. He barely even ever saw his roommates. “Do you do a lot of photo editing?” Zuko asked.

“I’d say so,” Jin supplied, “I’m a photography major.”

“Nice,” Zuko said. Jin took another sip of tea. Zuko stood there.

She put her cup back down. It was empty again so Zuko refilled it.

She smiled softly and spoke. “You should let me take pictures of you and your bike sometime.”

“I’m not really one for pictures.”

“That’s too bad,” Jin said, “everyone looks good in polaroid.”

Zuko really didn’t think he would.

“But that’s okay,” Jin added.

His declination seemed to not bother her which was good. She casually closed the light silver laptop in front of her, which Zuko thought meant she was leaving, but she picked up her teacup and moved her body to be facing him better to continue the conversation. The conversation continued for a little while. Jin mostly led the conversation, but Zuko had something to add and gave comments every once in a while. At one point, he even said something that made her laugh, which was shocking because he very rarely made people laugh. He wasn’t even trying to make her laugh. She just… did. 

She showed him some of the pictures she took. A lot of them were of garden scenes, but also some vintage-looking pictures of vinyl records and some of the people dancing.

“This place is really pretty with the white paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling and the pretty wooden tables and everything. I’ll have to ask your uncle if it's alright if I swing by sometime and take pictures of this place for a project.”

“I’m sure he would be fine with it,” Zuko responded.

There were only like five customers in total left in The Jasmine Dragon. They could have just as easily come to the front to ask a question or alert Iroh who was talking to someone near them, but one customer loudly called to get a server’s attention.

Zuko called back that he’d be right over and Jin said it was nice talking to him.

“You too,” he said and walked away to tend to the annoying customer and continue with his work.

Jin stayed at the Jasmine Dragon until closing, continuing to work on her editing and photography portfolio. She occasionally chatted with Iroh and listened to music with her earbuds. It was a nice ending for Zuko’s sucky day to know he was still capable of having a conversation with someone he didn’t know very well that didn’t involve arguing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not gonna lie, I love this chapter being entirely Zuko’s POV. Picking around his brain is one of my favorite hobbies.
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I plan to post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	6. Nevermind, Okay

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Halie_15x for beta-ing this chapter. <3

Katara took another lick of her ice cream and praised herself, she had a feeling getting a scoop of lavender and coconut would be the right choice. Right outside of campus was a little artisan ice cream shop Katara had gone to once before. She was currently there sitting in the round booth with her brother and a couple of their friends.

It all started because Toph said she was craving rocky road ice cream and when she went to the ice cream stand on campus, they didn’t have it. Now she was happily seated in the middle of all of them in the round booth tasting away at the large rocky road ice cream cone with sprinkles.

While the other four of them were laughing at one of Sokka’s jokes, Katara paid more attention to the cone in her hand, not wanting to let it melt like Aang’s was, and picked at some lint on her jeans. When she spotted someone she would have preferred not to, Katara faded out from listening to what her friends were saying altogether.

Zuko must have entered through the door without her noticing and was standing in line to order something. Standing behind him in line were three girls that looked to have come with him. She already knew Zuko dressed well, but it must’ve been some sort of requirement to be a part of their group.

The first girl standing behind him appeared to be goth… or was that just a style that was high fashion? Was goth still a thing? She also had on one of those expensive backpacks Katara’s seen around in a dark red matching her lip color. None of her black clothing had a single spot or hair, which was a feat.

The next girl had a smile on her face and a long braid in her hair. She had on a high neck black top and was pulling off a cute short plaid skirt with a pink corduroy jacket that Katara had to squint to see, but was pretty sure had the symbol in the corner of it that was that fancy brand with the man on the horse.

The last girl in line had a facial bone structure and golden eyes very similar to Zuko’s. They must’ve been related. Maybe siblings? Great, another person part of that terrible family. This girl appeared to be on another level with her appearance that was hard to describe. Her hair was up on top of her head with two pieces pulled out from the front to frame her face and reach past her red lips. When she turned for a moment to get a better look at the menu, Katara saw the back of her leather jacket had a striped snake on the back with the word ‘ _GUCCI_ ’. The girl tapped on her leg which brought Katara to her red-painted sharp nails.

Katara looked down at her nails, they were short and were colored with a sheer shiny lacquer.

The girl noticed her looking at her for a moment and raised one of her perfectly shaped brows and smirked. The expression caused a chill to run through Katara’s body. The trio was so pretty, it was kind of intimidating and Katara couldn’t tell which one it was, but one was wearing an expensive smelling perfume.

Katara looked back at Zuko, so these were the type of people he spent his time with. _Huh_. He was dressed well but seemed to be lacking the name brands the others had. He sported black pants and a white collared shirt layered underneath a red pullover sweatshirt with a simple black design on it. She brought her eyes up to his face and saw he was looking at her back. She felt her face flush and she frowned.

Katara felt a hand placed on her shoulder and she snapped her head to where it came from.

“Katara, your ice cream is melting,” Aang said with a smile.

It almost dripped onto the table. She licked up the side of her cone where the frozen treat overflowed and spared a glance back at the suspicious boy from class as she did it. He was watching her and when their eyes met again, he quickly turned to look away.

Katara took an assessment of her appearance: she was wearing an old shirt with a blue car on it that belonged to her dad, but she had no idea what model or type of car it was. She had on her light denim jacket over that with a pair of darker jeans and her mom’s necklace with her hair down in a casual way that probably looked messy. She wasn’t as striking in her clothing as Zuko and his friends were. Neither was her brother, considering he was wearing a t-shirt that said ‘ _WOMEN WANT ME FISH FEAR ME_ ’ from Gran Gran.

Her other friends also dressed pretty casually, Aang had on a yellow t-shirt and a denim jacket too, Toph had her short black hair in a bun and had on an old t-shirt and green linen overalls. The only exception to dressing simply was probably Suki, who was wearing a lace-up green tank top with jeans and had half of her hair french braided into a bun.

The group in line had gotten their ice cream and sat in the tall chairs around a table right across from Katara and her group. Zuko seemed to still be looking at her a little as she continued to eat her ice cream and tried to ignore them by listening to what Aang was saying and Toph was being snarky about. It was hard to ignore though, when those girls all turned their heads, looked at Zuko, and began whispering.

Sokka caught Katara's line of sight, looked at them and narrowed his eyes, then turned his attention back to the group. “Oh, it’s them.”

“It’s who?” Toph asked, trying a bite of Suki’s butter pecan ice cream.

“That group over there are all kinds of higher-ups at Comet Corporations. You know, that shady business that has done terrible things to almost everyone here—”

Years ago, Comet Corp. bought some of the island where Suki grew up and stripped the island of its natural resources ruining it environmentally. Aang had relatives who worked for them and they, as well as many other workers, were treated terribly. All of these things were illegal but the company got away with it because of its connections. Toph was the only one who wasn’t affected by them, her family's business had always refused to work with them, making enough profit on their own.

“—Two of them are even the children of the CEO,” Sokka said, waving his waffle cone around.

So Katara was right, those two were siblings.

“Oh, yeah,” Suki said and glanced their way then back at Sokka. “Their dad owns a share of the school, right?”

Sokka nodded while taking another bite and spoke with his mouth full. “I wonder if they’re egomaniacs like you’d think they would be. I heard the sister is the craziest of all and can be a _total_ bitch.”

Suki hit him on the shoulder and reminded him he shouldn’t call women bitches.

“Hey, someone else’s words, not mine.” Sokka had his hands up in surrender. “Ask Katara about them. She has a class with one of them.”

“Which one?” Toph asked with a smile on her face. Like how Sokka loved to complain, Toph loved to gossip.

“The guy, his name is Zuko.” Katara felt herself getting annoyed just saying his name.

“I’m sure they’re not as bad as Sokka is describing,” Aang chimed in. “What’s he like?”

Katara snorted, “An asshole.”

Katara looked up and saw Zuko’s sister step towards them, making her wonder how loud she and her friends were speaking. The girl stopped and stood in front of their table with a smile and her eyebrows drawn together. 

She licked at her ice cream and then spoke, “Well, you’ve had your fill of what to say about us, it’s my turn.” From behind her, her friends slowly approached with their ice cream in their hands.

Sokka tried to say something, but she interrupted him. She pointed one long finger at Sokka, “You must be jealous other people talk about us and you’ve heard of us on this giant campus.” The tall thin girl in the all-black and dark lipstick had the corner of her lips pulled up.

The girl went on, “by the way you and her-” she pointed her thumb at Katara for a moment, “-look, you must be from the south. So I guess you're also jealous of our money. How tacky.”

Sokka looked furious with the vein popping out of his forehead as he breathed heavily.

The girl didn’t even seem bothered by what they said, she just wanted an excuse to insult them and that it was fun. She moved onto Suki, who was holding hands with Sokka “Ooooh, he must be your little project to teach feminism to. Well, _good luck_.” 

Suki’s eyebrows were drawn together and she squeezed Sokka’s hand tighter in her own.

“I don’t know why you’re here. You look like you’re twelve,” Zuko’s sister said, now addressing Toph. She observed the girl’s milky white eyes. “I guess it’s a good thing I told you since you seem unable to see it for yourself.”

Toph mumbled ‘ _cunt_ ’ under her breath.

“I don’t even care what your deal is and why there’s a rodent in your pocket.” Momo popped out to take a lick of Aang’s ice cream and he pulled the cone away from him with a sour expression. The girl in the pink jacket giggled.

The girl twisted and faced Katara, looking her right in the eye. Katara had her arms crossed and was trying her best to look unbothered.“You know her, Zuzu?” the girl asked Zuko, who looked like a rare combination of grumpy and awkward.

 _’Zuzu_?’ Katara would have to use that next time he pissed her off.

Zuko didn’t answer and his sister looked Katara up and down and Katara had a feeling whatever she was going to say about her was going to be brutal because she caught her staring at all of them earlier and she was the last on the lineup. “God, everything about you is so obvious and easy to dissect.”

Katara felt her cheeks heat but still held her gaze.

“You seem so _boring_. Let me guess? You’re some virgin who is here because of some scholarship where you had to write out some sad sob story you spent all of your time working towards and that’s why you probably had no friends in high school.”

All of those things were true. She was there on a scholarship since she hadn’t had enough money saved up like Sokka, she wrote the essay on her mother’s death, she was a virgin, she _was_ boring or she at least had been feeling bored all of the time.

“Oh, you didn’t like what I had to say?” The girl said to the group in a mocking tone, “That’s too bad. But remember, you started it.”

Zuko dared to look at least a little uncomfortable, “Azula, let’s go. I have work soon.”

“And I’m bored.” The girl in black added.

Azula rolled her eyes, “fine.”

The girl in the pink spoke in a weirdly cheery voice. “You guys all have nice auras, though!” She looked directly at Sokka while pouting and said, “It’s too bad you said mean things about us because you sure are cute.” She led the other three out the door with a small bounce in her step. 

As Katara’s friends spoke about what happened, she watched them retreat into a parked red mustang. Azula in the driver’s seat, the pink girl sat shotgun, and in the back were Zuko and the goth looking girl.

Katara didn’t want to let what was said get to her, her friends seemed fine with brushing it off, but Katara’s mind raced.

Lately, it always seemed like she felt a little bored and lonely. She loved her friends and loved spending time with them, but it sometimes felt like something was missing or she could be doing but wasn’t. Sometimes when she hung out with her friends it felt like she was just… there. Like maybe she was the boring one or not doing what she was supposed to be doing to enjoy university life.

By the time she got back to her apartment, Katara realized she now had a new goal: she was going to make this semester different and it was still early enough in the semester to do so. She wanted to do the things she would see university students do in movies. She wanted to go to parties, have hookups, get a boyfriend, get drunk, maybe even do drugs. It was her third semester and she still hadn’t done any of those things and she was curious.

Behind her when she walked through the door was Suki. Usually, Suki spent most evenings with her boyfriend, but Sokka had a lot of homework he needed to get done, so Suki said she didn’t want to distract him.

Inside their apartment, On Ji was sitting on the kitchen island doing something on her phone. Next to her, Song was ironing what looked to be her scrubs on her small ironing board.

“I think I’m going to make a Tinder,” Katara announced.

“Yay!” On Ji clapped.

“What made you finally decide?” Suki asked as she went to the fridge and grabbed a water bottle.

“I want to try new things this semester.” _And figure out how to be a normal university student that doesn’t only hang out with the same group of people, one of them being her brother, and actually has a love life._ “The only problem is I have no idea how to set it up or what to put on my profile.”

“We’ll help,” Song said excitedly while she unplugged the iron.

“Can we?” On Ji hopped off the marble counter.

“I’m helping you set it up whether you want me to or not,” Suki called out as she refilled the water bottle.

“Yeah, you guys can help. Come with me to my room so I can plug in my phone.”

They followed behind her and surprisingly, they were all able to fit on Katara’s twin-sized bed with them sitting with their backs against the wall. Katara plugged her phone into the long extension cord that reached from under the desk and over On Ji’s and Suki’s lap. “Alright, let’s get started.”

She opened up the app store, typed in ‘ _Tinder_ ’, and hit download. She had no idea why she felt a little nervous, so she swallowed that feeling down. It finished loading and she pressed on the icon to open the app.

“Let’s see what pictures you’re thinking of using,” Suki said.

“I have no idea. I haven’t been thinking about this for long.” She opened up her camera roll and hoped there wasn’t anything embarrassing saved on her phone she couldn’t remember. Suki leaned closer to her as she scrolled through.

“I like this one,” Song said, as she referred to something on her phone. She had Katara’s Instagram pulled up and it was on a picture from the previous semester. It was a selfie Katara took on the Koolau mountains during a hiking and camping trip with Toph, Aang, and Sokka. She looked a little sweaty and pieces of her hair were falling out of its braid, but the lighting was great and the view behind her was great.

Suki pulled it up from the camera roll. “I’ll make a folder and put it in as an option.”

“Good idea to check her Instagram, Song.” On Ji grabbed her phone from her pocket and pulled up Katara’s Instagram page to look through.

Katara didn’t know what to do while Suki had her phone and her two other roommates were on theirs, so she waited, grabbed one of the pillows tossed on the floor, and set it in her lap.

“What about this one?” On Ji asked, referring to a picture of Katara at a public swimming pool when she was seventeen.

“Oh, it’s nice. It shows off your mermaid hair.” Suki said.

“It’s a cute picture, but I think it might be too old,” Katara said. It was too bad. It was a nice picture of her in a pool ring. They all hummed and nodded in agreement as they turned their attention back to their screens.

“Having a picture of you in a swimsuit wouldn’t be a bad idea, though,” Suki said. She pulled up a picture and showed it to the rest of the group.

“Damn, Katara! That one’s hot! Why didn’t you ever post it?” On Ji said.

Katara laughed, “I don’t know, I just never did.” It was definitely one of the more provocative pictures she had ever taken of herself, despite it still being pretty tame compared to what she’s seen other people post. It was taken the previous summer on a road trip with Aang and Sokka the summer before Katara started her second year of university. They visited a warm beach and spent the night in just sleeping bags because they forgot to bring a tent.

The picture showed Katara wearing her favorite white bikini with a bandeau top and a high waisted bottom. She was sitting on her legs in the sand with her long hair completely down behind her shoulders and back. There was water from the ocean glistening on her chest and sand on her legs. Behind her, the waves were rolling in.

“We’ll use that as the first photo as a thirst trap,” Suki said with a wink.

Katara laughed again but nodded.

After arguing and some decision making where Katara had to intervene, they finally had all six photos for her profile picked out and the order of them decided on. It would start with the beach photo. Then a picture from a party they had at the end of the previous semester of Katara, Aang, and Suki playing twister while Toph and Haru sat on the couch behind them. Next was a picture of Katara in a light blue dress laying in grass. The fourth was a picture of her and Sokka She had from when she was four and he was five right after she had shoved some cake into his mouth and it got all over his face. After that was the selfie she took on the mountain. Lastly, it was a picture of her, Sokka, Gran-Gran, and her dad on her nineteenth birthday.

“Next is the bio,” Suki tapped her chin, “how about ‘ _try to make me wetter than I was in that picture_ ’ with a wink, water squirt, and eggplant emoji.”

On Ji even fell into Suki’s lap laughing so hard and Song had tears in her eyes. Katara rolled her eyes with a smile on her face and grabbed her phone back from Suki’s hands. “What if I start with having it be simple like my age and major and what not?”

“Also some interests,” Song suggested.

Katara nodded, typed her bio out, then read it out loud to her roommates. “‘ _Nineteen-year-old student at BSSU majoring in biomedical studies. I travel a lot with my friends and am a lover of the ocean_.’ How does that sound?”

“Sounds good,” On Ji answered and the other two girls agreed, “Now you need to set the location to our city and then we can start assessing your potential future lovers, or at least some interesting boys you can mess around with.”

Katara did as she was told and then clicked save. She held up her phone as they swiped through the different men. She swiped past someone named Ruon-Jian who was attractive, but his last picture was of him at what was clearly a frat party, which Katara would have been okay with if the picture didn’t also have his arms around two girls and he was kissing one of them.

“Why would he put that in his Tinder profile?” Song asked, she had retrieved tea for herself and On Ji and some hot cocoa for

Suki and Katara, careful not to spill the drinks on the tan carpet as she brought them over.

There were a couple of other guys she swiped right on, but none of them got all of the girls excited. Then they got to the profile of one of Sokka’s roommates and her friend, Teo.

“I forgot people I knew would be able to see my profile,” Katara said.

“Hmmm,” Suki hummed to get all of their attention while she finished taking a sip. “Haru once found his _professor_ on Grindr.”

Katara’s Jaw dropped.

“I know right,” Suki said while giggling, “the best part is Haru said he was more surprised he was gay than he was that he passed the class.”

“Which way did he swipe?” On Ji asked.

“He told me he swiped right because he was hoping he would maybe get an A, but they didn’t match.”

The next profile almost made Katara spill her warm drink all over her lap.

“He’s cute,” Song said.

“That’s the guy I met the other day!” Katara said. Katara swiped through. There were four pictures, the first of him sitting on cement steps somewhere with his head in his hand and a sexy smile on his face. The next was a picture of him, the girl Katara saw at the campus bookstore, and some other really tall guy. It was a movie scene-looking background with a tall fire and an explosion. Next was a picture of him hopping a fence. The final picture was a side view of his profile with a cigarette in his hand, the smoke around him looked artistic.

“Huh?” Song asked.

“A couple of days ago I met this guy at the campus bookstore. It seemed like he might have been flirting with me,” Katara said with a bright smile as she tapped her foot against the gray covers of her bed.

“Oh, that guy!” Suki said. She leaned over On Ji and set her now empty mug on the desk at the end of Katara’s bed next to the makeup mirror.

“What does his description say.”

Katara pulled it up and read. “‘ _Activist who’s trying to fix the injustices of the world. Studying psychology. HMU if you wanna hang. I have plenty of bad pickup lines if you’d like me to use them_.’“

“Underwhelming,” Song said. Katara didn’t think it was that bad. It was a little similar to her own.

“I think I’m gonna swipe right.”

“Do it,” Suki replied and shook Katara’s shoulders. Katara set her mug down onto the desk. She took a breath and swiped right. The screen immediately lit up and revealed it was a match. The girls around Katara all cheered and bounced on the bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading another chapter and thank you to everyone who has left comments so far, y’all are rad!
> 
> ALSO, FUN FACT: The story about Haru finding his professor on Grinder is actually something that happened to cupidshootstokill’s friend!!! She told me the story and I knew I had to include it! Go check her out on Tumblr, she also writes Zutara fanfiction.
> 
> Next chapter will be out this Friday.
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I plan to post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	7. Noise in my Head

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for not posting a sneak peek to this chapter on Tumblr this week, I spent this whole time trying to edit it down but still include all of the details I wanted in time.
> 
> As always, huge thanks to Halie_15x for being my beta. 🖤

There was a smile on Katara’s face as she walked through the door the attractive guy was holding open for her. It was her first time meeting up with Jet since they matched on the app, they started by messaging on the app and then exchanged numbers to text each other. Katara brought up doing math homework together as they talked about at the campus bookstore and he invited her over. She arrived at his apartment an hour later with her bag around her shoulder and a bundle of nerves in her stomach.

Katara glanced around, his place was relatively clean and there wasn’t anyone in the kitchen or the sitting area.

“Nice place,” Katara said.

“Thanks,” Jet responded and led her to the short hallway with three doors.

“How many roommates do you have?”

“Two.” Jet responded as he held open the door in the hallway closest to the general area. Katara walked through and entered his room.

The room looked like how she expected, more decorated than Sokka’s and less decorated than Aang’. Above the bed, which looked like it was made quickly, were a couple of music posters from hard rock bands Katara had only heard of and there was a door revealing a connecting bathroom. There was a hint of cannabis, a scent Katara was familiar with from Haru and Suki.

She turned back to look at Jet with a smile on her face. “I like your room.”

“Thanks,” The corner of his mouth was upturned. He looked nice and was wearing a plain tan t-shirt tucked into brown pants with a thick black belt and a chain from the pocket, pairing well with his rugged features.

He gestured for her to sit on the bed and she followed his command. She cursed how sitting on top of the navy sheets and white bedspread made her heart rate quicken.

Jet casually shut his bedroom door behind him and Katara set her bag down beside her and started to pull some of the books and things out. She looked back up, he had taken his phone out of his back pocket and typed something. When he finished, he put his phone back into his pocket, grabbed the textbook and notebook off the desk, and sat down on the bed beside her.

“Sorry about that,” Jet said with a charming expression on his face, “My friend Smellerbee and my roommate Longshot are working on something and they needed my help to figure out the mechanics of it.”

Katara tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. “Don’t worry about it. Smellerbee— was she at the bookstore?”

“Yeah, that’s her. It’s a nickname she goes by. Longshot too.” 

“Oh, cool,” Katara felt shy.

“Wanna get some food?” Jet asked. “I’m shit at cooking so I thought I would order us something to have as we worked.”

Katara nodded, she hadn’t had any dinner yet and it was already eight. “Sure, anything is good with me.” She turned her body to face him better.

“Bitchin’. I’ll order it on my phone.” He pulled his phone out again, typed in the long password, and opened up an app.

Katara pulled out her phone to pay for half. “What’s your Venmo?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Jet said and looked at her, “I insist. That way, if you don’t want to count this as a date, view it as a thank you for doing math homework with me,” he winked.

Heat rose to Katara’s face, she hadn’t been sure if it was a date either. She decided to ask him in a shy but flirtatious tone, “ _Oh_? Is this date?”

Jet played along, he looked up like he was pretending to be thinking about it and then tilted his chis back down, pausing typing on his phone. “Let’s call this a pre-date. For a real date, I would take a girl like you somewhere. Which I’ll do the next time we hang out.”

Katara didn’t know what ‘ _a girl like her_ ’ meant, but she didn’t question it since she didn’t think it was an insult. She laughed and Jet joined her with a chuckle.

A ‘pre-date’. Katara felt more confident she was wearing the right outfit then. She had debated on wearing her denim skirt but decided it would appear too much like she put a lot of thought into her outfit, which was true, but she didn’t want it to be obvious.

They started on their math assignments until the knock on the front door signaled the food arrived. Katara stayed seated on the bed and looked around his room more as Jet went and got it. When he came back, they continued while eating chow mein and potstickers and took breaks to talk about things other than matrices.

The conversation landed on Katara’s family after she mentioned her brother was also attending the university. “Sokka’s studying information technology. He comes across as dumb, but he’s smart and great at coming up with ideas and creating new things,” Katara used her chopsticks to bring another noodle up into her mouth and swallowed before she continued speaking. “My dad is a politician and does a lot of work with our military and my mother did a lot in political activism.” Katara decided to leave out that her father working with the military caused him to not be around a lot when she and Sokka were younger, leaving them in the care of their grandmother. She also didn’t feel like talking about her mother’s death.

“That’s rad.” Jet said, “It’s important to fight for what you believe.”

“I agree,” Katara nodded with a smile. “And work to help those who need you.”

“Exactly,” Jet responded. He held up the carton of potstickers and Katara grabbed one.

She glanced at the upside-down flag hanging on his wall. “I’m guessing you’re a very political person.”

“Yeah,” Jet said, “there’s a lot of things needing to be done to fix the system, especially with all of the corruption coming from the influences of major businesses.”

Katara’s mind brought up the memory of learning about Zuko’s family’s company. “I agree.”

Jet chuckled. “Isn’t there some rule about not talking about politics with pretty girls you haven’t known long in case you get into an argument or something? I guess I can add that to the ways I’m a rule breaker.”

Katara giggled, calling her pretty was probably lip service, but she liked it. “I don’t mind.”

The conversation continued and they exchanged funny stories and found some more things they had in common like favorite foods and other interests.

When they finished eating, they went back to their math work and kept at it for about twenty minutes until Jet reached over and closed both of their textbooks. “We’ve done a lot more studying than I usually do.”

Katara let out a laugh. “How much do you usually study?” She noticed he had gotten closer to her.

“I don’t really,” Jet answered, “but I’ll finish it another time.”

He really did have a nice face with a square jaw with a little stubble, thin pointed brows, and dark brown eyes. His skin had a nice tan to it, although it wasn’t as dark as hers. She knew he caught her staring at his face when both corners of his mouth lifted and one of his eyebrows rose. Katara blushed so hard that she probably looked as if she suddenly got a sunburn.

Jet leaned his face close to hers and with the smug expression still on his face, glanced down at her lips and then back into her eyes. He had left enough space between them so she could easily pull away or lean forward the rest of the way and she would be kissing him.

She swallowed the saliva that collected in her mouth and willed the butterflies in her stomach to calm down and leaned.

Jet’s smile grew bigger and he closed the distance, leaning his weight against his right arm on the bed beside them as he kissed her.

Katara had kissed before. She kissed Haru once when they dated and had her first kiss when she was fourteen and Aang kissed her without asking. She had a few simple kisses between those times, but none since she started university. She tried not to wonder if she was a good kisser or not.

Jet pressed his tongue into her mouth and against hers, something had experienced before and had always been unsure of whether or not she enjoyed it, Jet’s tongue didn’t clear up any of the confusion.

After taking a second to breathe, they continued making out and Jet put one hand under her chin and the other on her knee slowly sliding up to her thigh and then back down to her knee. At one point he nipped her lip and a little squeak escaped her lips. She felt embarrassed by it, but Jet told her it was hot.

Eventually, it got late and Jet offered to drive her back to her apartment, which she accepted. They continued their conversation from earlier as he drove and when he parked, she hopped out and said goodbye.

When Katara made it into her apartment, she lifted a hand to her face, which was still hot from the kissing, and went to the bathroom to observe her appearance. She looked like how she did when she left, except her lips were swollen from all the kissing. She opened her mouth and noticed a small bruise on her tongue. She knew she tended to bruise easily, but she didn’t think it would apply to her tongue too.

Katara began to worry a little. She had a fun time, despite not having any feelings for him yet, but was it okay she made out with him on their first date— or ‘ _pre-date_ ’? All of this was new to her and she had told herself she was going to go do these kinds of things so she was proud of herself, but was it too soon?

She continued those thoughts as she walked to her room. As she closed the door, she felt a buzz coming from her phone in her pocket. She grabbed it out and saw it was a text from Jet saying he had a great time and he wanted to get together with her again sometime.

Katara laid down on her bed with her shoes and clothes all still on. With a smile as she bit her lip, she texted him back.

Iroh hadn’t changed the decor of his house since Zuko had begun university. Or from when Zuko was in high school, really. The bookshelves and modest-sized tv were still in the living room with Zuko’s French horn in the corner. 

The tv was playing Iroh’s favorite sitcom that Zuko promised to come over and watch with him. Zuko didn’t mind visiting his uncle, especially because Jet mentioned having a girl over that night and he tended to be very vocal during sex. The walls of their apartment were thin.

Iroh sat in the reclining chair and had on his pair of reading glasses. He was writing things down in his binder he used for calculating The Jasmine Dragon’s finances.

When a commercial break came up, Iroh turned and asked, “Nephew, could you bring me the tax return form from this month?”

“Sure,” Zuko responded. When he first moved in, he would have complained and felt entitled that Iroh brought _him_ things, not the other way around. “Where is it?” He stood up from the couch.

“In the top drawer of my desk. Thank you, Zuko.”

Zuko nodded and left to get it. The office was the only other room on the bottom floor beside the kitchen. Despite the house being small, it still had two stories.

Zuko turned on the light of the room as he entered. During the day, the sun coming through from the window usually lit up the room but it was already almost eight. Zuko opened the drawer expecting to see the paper, but it wasn’t there. He shifted around a bit, but all of those papers were employee information, which was probably something illegal for Zuko to see.

Zuko was going to call out to his uncle to tell him he couldn’t find it, but Zuko noticed the other drawer of the fancy old desk appeared to be unlocked. He opened it, thinking Iroh must have accidentally placed it there since Zuko had never seen it unlocked before.

Inside the drawer was a giant stack of papers. Zuko sighed and pulled the stack out and placed it on the desk next to the keyboard. He was right, it was the third thing down in the stack underneath a printed out paper listing details of his and Iroh’s motorcycle insurance and a folder containing some ideas for tea recipes.

Zuko put the tax return form to the side and picked up the stack of papers to put back into the drawer, but some of the pile slipped from his fingers. Zuko placed the rest back into the drawer and bent down to pick up what was dropped. He put those things in the drawer, but it wouldn’t close because a folder was in the way. Zuko tried shifting things around a couple of times, but the drawer still refused to close. Zuko frustratedly pulled the folder out to see what even was in the stupid thing.

He set it on the ground next to his crouched position and opened the thick folder up. In front of the folder appeared to be some papers from when Iroh had worked in the family business before leaving and opening the tea shop. Iroh must have forgotten about them since Zuko didn’t see any other reason for him to hold onto them. Zuko flipped through the pages in the folder and landed on handwritten letters paperclipped together. Zuko recognized the handwriting but he didn’t know where from. He began to read.

_Dear Iroh,_

_Ozai has appeared to have given up on searching for me finally (something we both know he promised he wouldn’t do in the first place). Although, I can never be too sure. We both know what happened the last time I let my guard down._

Zuko felt himself pale. He kept reading.

 _I miss the kids terribly each day. Yesterday I had a visit from the neighbor and her young daughter. She had a duck on her shirt. It reminded me of Zuko. Please let me know if you hear from him or Azula. I have the pictures you sent me of the two of them in my purse with me wherever I go. It’s only been a year, but it looks like they’ve grown so much_.

It felt like Zuko couldn’t breathe and an uncomfortable heat spread around his chest.

_Hopefully, everything will clear up soon, and maybe I could visit your tea shop sometime. Sorry, it’s such a short letter, but, you know… -Ursa_

Zuko stared at the letter and roughly pulled out another one. This one was dated a couple of years later. Zuko would have been fourteen and already have been living with his uncle for a year. That meant she had still been alive.

He heard Iroh call out to him from the living room. “Nephew! The commercial break has ended!”

Zuko took quick shallow breaths as he shoved everything back into the folder, stood up, and grabbed the tax return form with his other hand. Zuko was practically raging as he stood at the edge of the gray living room carpet.

Iroh didn’t even look away from the tv as he asked him if he was able to find the tax return form.

Zuko stomped over and harshly set the form on the arm of Iroh’s chai then held up the folder and hissed out, “Uncle, what the hell is this?”

After he paused the tv and turned to face him, Iroh’s eyes widened as he saw the folder.

“Why don’t you take a seat while we talk, I’ll brew us some calming tea.” He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes.

“ _I don’t want any calming tea!_ ” Zuko yelled.

“Very well,” Iroh responded and put the chair’s footrest down and straightened the back of it. His face grew solemn.

“What were those letters from my mom? They’re from after she left! Do you know where she is?” Zuko was twenty-one but was practically spitting fire the way he did when he was thirteen.

Iroh sternly spoke over his yelling. “I told you to _sit_ , Nephew. If you want to know what I know about all of this we need to start from the beginning.”

Zuko took another deep angry breath and sat down at the corner of the couch. “Fine. Tell me everything and be straightforward. Don’t use any of your confusing proverbs.”

Iroh had his eyes closed before he spoke. “As you probably realized when you were younger, your mother didn’t enjoy being the wife of a businessman and aspiring politician. She had other things she dreamed of accomplishing, but it was an arranged marriage she couldn’t say no to without her parents’ job being threatened by your grandfather, Azulon.”

Zuko clenched his fist as he kept listening. He knew it was an arranged marriage between his mother and father. It was common for people who are children of high ranking company owners. He was even able to tell when he was younger that his mother wasn’t very happy, despite how much she tried to hide it, but Zuko hadn’t ever learned all of the circumstances Iroh had told him so far.

“When she discovered my brother had practically bought her from her family with help from my father’s threats, she became depressed. It got worse as she got more involved in what is now your father’s company.”

“What did Mom not like about the company?” Zuko asked.

Iroh was silent and looked like he was contemplating behind his eyes.

Zuko felt himself growing impatient. “I heard a rumor it has some bad connections and doesn’t treat its workers well. Is that true?” Zuko thought of how angry Katara had been and her friends at the ice cream shop and how he brushed off what they said as rumors they were dumb for believing. “Tell me,” Zuko commanded.

Iroh’s eyes narrowed and his lips tightened further into a line. Zuko knew he shouldn’t be acting like this to his uncle, especially now he was older but he felt as confused and betrayed as he did back then when Iroh took him in.

“When Comet Corporations first began, they started using practices that badly hurt the environment.”

Zuko knew this. “I thought it stopped before I was born and was switched to more sustainable practices”

Iroh shook his head, “No, they began to pay under the table so they could continue their dealings, they even spread to more islands. They also have a history of not sufficiently paying workers, not providing the legally required breaks, and whatnot. There is so much more above-the-surface terrible things the company does.”

Iroh looked in pain speaking the next part, “When I was much younger, I was completely wrapped up in it. I provided new ways the company could cut corners and use shortcuts. I was dumb and greedy and blind to all of the terrible injustices. I was the next in line to take over the business and I helped with gaining even more money we didn’t need by illegal work with stocks. I will be ashamed I was a part of all of this until I die, even after that. And that’s without even bringing up all of the dark awful things happening underneath the surface.”

“How-“ The words caught in Zuko’s throat. “How does the illegal work go unpunished? How is my dad even able to run for _public office_?”

The lines on Iroh’s forehead creased further and his eyes darkened. “Nephew, some of the things I’m going to tell you are very dark and disgusting,” Iroh warned and then took a deep breath. Zuko ground his teeth.

“Earlier you mentioned bad connections, but it’s more than that, one of the ways the company has made money from the time your great grandfather was in charge that it still uses today is the connection to the Fire Sage Mafia, a group that started as pyromaniacs then escalated.”

Zuko’s blood ran cold. He had heard of them but never believed his family would have any connection with people who did things so horrible. “What do you mean it gets money from them? Is my dad blackmailing them or something?”

Iroh looked heartbroken at Zuko’s hopefulness. “Ozai owns them. He gets to profit from the drug dealing, the hitman work, and human trafficking.”

Zuko’s eyes widened and he felt like he could throw up. He knew his father had a couple of missteps— the scar on his face being an example, but he didn’t want to believe this.

“You’re lying.” He accused, but he already knew Iroh wasn’t.

“I wish I was, Zuko. That’s why your father is running for office and why he has such financial involvement with the school, to keep things and people all under his thumb.”

Lots of big corruptions had been exposed to be working with the mafia, but Zuko didn’t think his family’s business had anything to do with it. It turned out they were running the whole operation. Zuko’s scar felt like it was burning. He knew it was a mental pain related to his trauma his brain was tricking him with, but he still put his hand over his face hoping it would ease the feeling. He felt fury.

He was mad at his dad for everything he was doing. Mad at his mom for leaving him. Mad at Iroh for never telling him all of these things. Mad he could be considered a part of what his family was doing. He was furious, but he needed to know more. “What made you leave?” Zuko asked.

His uncle’s eyes had teared up. Usually the rare sight of his uncle crying made Zuko feel sobered and unsure, but the heat behind his eyes stayed so he tried and failed to take deep breaths as he listened.

“I think it was my son’s death that pushed me to hand the future ownership company over to your father. When Lu Ten was killed by the Fire Sages for not listening to their command, everything your mother had argued against had begun to make sense and so I left and grieved the loss of my son, who I cared so much about just like how I care so much about you.” Iroh sniffed. Lines had gotten more prominent in the older man’s face.

“Why are you just telling me all of this _now_? What does it have to do with the letters from my mom?”

Iroh willed himself from letting the water in his eyes flow. “As I said, Ursa was unhappy with everything happening around her. I don’t know any details, but your mother made a deal with your father where he could become the new CEO earlier than planned in exchange for her freedom. She wanted to bring you and your sister with her but your father refused, so instead, she made Ozai promise your protection.”

Zuko didn’t miss the way Iroh’s eyes landed on the hand pressed against his scar.

“Since I was also no longer financially connected to the family, your mother reached out to me through letters with an ambiguous return address. She trusted me to not tell a soul and I followed through. I wrote back but by the time you were fifteen, she stopped responding. I even went to the address and found no one there. I have no idea what happened to her. All I know is Ozai threatened Ursa’s family if she didn’t disappear and even threatened to kill her.”

Iroh didn’t have to say it, he could tell Ozai must have found out about all of the letters.

“That’s all I know,” Iroh concluded and the two of them sat in silence. It was completely dark, all of the outside light pollution gone, causing the only light in the room to come from the still paused tv.

Zuko felt like throwing something. So it was true when Ozai had told him Ursa was dead. He was given hope and then it was taken away. Zuko pulled his hand off of his face and felt his anger build at all of the information.

His anger began to heat so much to the point where it was boiling. “Why didn’t you at least tell me about all of the fucked up stuff our family is involved with?” Zuko gritted out.

Iroh leaned over and placed a hand on his arm that Zuko shrugged off. He ignored the hurt expression on his uncle’s face and waited for him to speak. 

“You were so desperate to earn your father’s love and I was praying for you to realize you don’t need it. When you finally accepted it was when I was going to tell you everything. I see now the way I went about it was a mistake.” Iroh looked him right in the eye. “Zuko, you have good in you, not just your father’s blood.”

Zuko didn’t care. He wanted to scream at his uncle. Instead, he stood up off the couch and stomped straight out the front door. Iroh didn’t stop him.

Zuko shoved his helmet onto his head and hopped on his motorcycle and started driving. He wasn’t heading back to his apartment. He wasn’t heading anywhere. Where would he even go alone on a Monday night? He could go over to Azula’s apartment, but he didn’t feel up to seeing his friends and he wasn’t ready to find out whether or not his sister already knew of all the family secrets.

Zuko was about five miles away from his uncle’s place when he turned left and noticed the public was empty. That made sense for how dark it was out.

He looped around the park twice before parking his motorcycle. He tried taking off his helmet, but the thread from the strap got caught in the buckle. He pulled harder. When he finally was able to yank the thing off his head, he threw it onto the grass in rage.

Zuko trudged over to the old playground and took a seat on the swingset. He didn’t kick off or move. He sat there and replayed over and over again everything he learned. Zuko hated how it all started to click with the painful memories he carried.

_Zuko fell to his knees and immediately began apologizing. His father had an expression on his face that through the tears in his eyes, Zuko was unable to decipher whether it was a sneer or a grin._

_Ozai shoved Zuko’s small thirteen-year-old frame onto his back. Ozai held him down by his hand at his throat, but he didn’t need to, Zuko wasn’t going to move. He felt too_ _scared and ashamed._

_By being so close to him, Zuko was able to smell the light scent of alcohol coming from his father. His father pulled a lighter out of his pocket and Zuko’s eyes went wide as Ozai brought the flame closer and closer to his face._

_The words Ozai was saying were ringing in Zuko’s ears and the only thing he could hear over his own yelling._

Zuko took a deep breath into the night air. He was still seated on the swing as the memory ended, but now his head was in his hands and his elbows were on his knees. He took another long inhale and brought his face back up. A tear had run down his cheek and he harshly wiped it away.

He was lucky Iroh was there for him the next day to take him in when Zuko found all of his stuff packed up and his father refused to meet with him. It was probably the only luck he had in his entire life.

He had sported a variety of bad haircuts in his time. A lot of them he used to display his scar to look tough, hoping it would please his father, but then Azula continuously told him how dumb he looked whenever they video called or saw each other, so Zuko cut all of it off and restarted. By the time he was in high school, it was all grown out and shaggy. He had hoped it would maybe hide his scar a little bit. By the time he graduated, he ended up giving less of a fuck when it came to whether he should hide his scar or show it.

Iroh was always nice to him about his hair and scar insecurities, though.

Zuko pushed off the swing and picked up his helmet from the grass and got back onto his bike. He checked the time on his phone. He must have been at the park for a longer time than he thought. He started the motorcycle up and drove back to his apartment.

When he walked through the door, all the lights were off in the kitchen and seating area and the short hallway, like always. The girl Jet had over must have left. Zuko went to his room and sat down on the edge of his bed. His head was throbbing.

He pulled out his phone, opened up the keypad, began typing out the phone number contact, deleted it, and then retyped it. He clicked call and held the phone up to his ear and listened to the ring before the other line picked up.

“ _Zuko, are you alright? Where are you?_ ” Iroh’s voice came from the speaker. He sounded wet like he had been crying.

“I’m at my apartment. I'm fine.” Zuko responded. He was silent for a moment. “I’m sorry for yelling at you and then running out.”

“ _It’s alright_ , Zuko,” Iroh responded. “ _I’m sorry for not telling you everything earlier and for unleashing all of it all at once_.”

Zuko swallowed. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”

Iroh didn’t say anything so Zuko spoke again. “I have class in the morning, so I’m going to go to sleep I think.”

“ _Sleep tight, Zuko_.”

“You too, Uncle,” Zuko responded before hanging up and leaning his back down on his bed. It was a lie. He doubted he would sleep that night. He still had a lot to think over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Zuko.
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has been reading so far. You guys rock.
> 
> I know that I originally planned on posting twice a week, but since this chapter took so long and I have a family member visiting, I will be waiting until next Friday to post the next chapter. 😊
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr to stay updated until I release the next chapter, and while you’re there, feel free to send me an ask or dm me. ❤️ [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	8. I Like (the Idea of) You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s been a week! It’s so good to be posting again!

Katara opened the door of The Jasmine Dragon and listened to the soft bell ring then took her order at the register from a tall woman in a green apron. She could have sat at the table she and Haru sat at last time, but instead, she decided on a soft couch chair with a short coffee table beside it. Through the window, Katara watched a couple of hummingbirds flying around.

She had two hours before her next class and the tea shop was closer to the building her class would be in than her apartment and she honestly had been wanting to try some more of the tea, despite not wanting to go there due to the person who owned the place and his nephew, but she caved.

Coming to The Jasmine was also an excuse for Katara to scope out the owner and try to get a read on him. She wanted to not trust Iroh but he hardly seemed suspicious and he wasn’t anywhere near as reproachable as his nephew.

Katara narrowed her eyes and took a quick couple of glances around to see if Zuko was there and didn’t see him anywhere. She sat further back in her seat and typed away at her laptop as she waited for a server to bring her her order. When the server finally did, she was surprised to see it was Iroh.

“Katara. How have you been? Ms. Beifong came by recently and I was hoping you would come and visit again as well.” Iroh set the tea down on the coffee table in front of her.

Katara smiled. There was some quality the older man possessed that was hard to pin down, and it wasn’t just having a way with words. “Thank you. I love the tea you make, are they all your own recipes?”

Iroh nodded. “They are. I learned a lot of different recipes from traveling a lot when I was a much younger man.”

“I also like all of the pastries,” Katara added. “I haven’t tried a lot of them, but I had a taste of the almond cookie my friend Haru ordered and it was very delicious.”

The dimple that appeared whenever he smiled became more prominent on Iroh’s wrinkled face. “Thank you, but those I am unable to take credit for. The recipes of all of the baked treats came from Ming.” Iroh gestured to one of the tea servers who was wiping down a table.

“So what made you want to open a tea shop?” Katara asked as she took a sip of her chai tea.

“Once it became a goal of mine to have my own independent small business where I could make everyone happy with the tea I could brew for them.” He responded. “I’m very lucky I get to live out that dream.”

So that meant The Jasmine Dragon had no relation to Comet Corps. That was a good sign.

Katara looked at her laptop screen, she didn’t feel like doing her homework. Jet had told her he barely ever did his homework and still did pretty well in his classes. She closed her laptop and put it back into her bag, she could just do the assignment later.

Katara motioned to the chair across from her and asked Iroh if he’d like to sit.

“Of course, only if you don’t have anything you need to get back to,” Iroh supplied.

“No, it’s fine,” Katara answered.

“Thank you, Katara. I am very flattered,” Iroh said as he sat down in the soft cushioned chair.

Katara already learned it from the last time she was there, but Iroh was a great conversationalist. They drank tea together and talked about Iroh’s travels and Katara’s life growing up back at home. As the conversation went on, Iroh got up and brought over a fresh pot of tea and a teacup for himself. Eventually, they moved seats to a table near the back to play a game of Pai Sho.

“It’s very kind of you to play with me, Ms. Katara. I have been trying to pique my nephew's interest in the game since he moved in with me when he was thirteen. It was only the two of us but he rarely played a round with me.”

So Zuko had lived with his uncle? It made Katara curious as to why and why his sister didn’t, but she told herself she didn’t care.

“What was it like raising Zuko on your own?” Katara asked as she moved the boat tile forward onto the lighter panel of the board. It felt weird to bring him up so casually and without any malice in her tone.

Iroh moved his boat tile forward to the opposing panel. “Well, I had been a single parent before I began to raise Zuko. I had a son Lu Ten who passed away when Zuko was much younger and my wife had died in labor.”

Despite the smile, the man looked sad and it made Katara feel bad for asking about such a sensitive and personal subject. She concluded Iroh was a good man who came from a terrible family.

“I’m so sorry. When I was younger, I lost my mother,” Katara shared.

“The one who gave you that beautiful necklace,” Iroh responded and Katara nodded. They both took a sip of their tea.

It was Iroh’s turn to play, he picked up the lotus tile and observed it. “This tile is my favorite of the set.” 

“Why is that?” Katara asked and picked up the teapot to refill their cups.

Iroh shrugged with a smile on his face. “The lotus flower reminds me of my nephew.”

She didn’t understand what he meant, but she nodded and played her turn.

Katara changed the song playing on her phone as she continued to get ready. She pulled on the short navy blue dress with red and gold detailed flowers over her white short sleeve t-shirt. She bought the dress a while ago on sale, but she hadn’t had a chance to wear it anywhere. She was still worried about it being too fancy so she paired it with converse.

She sat down at her desk, pulled her small mirror forward, and pulled her hair half up to show off her cartilage piercing. She didn’t have close to as many piercings as Jet, but she hoped showing off her one would make her seem a little cooler and less like the stay-at-home loser she was.

Suki opened her door and entered carrying a makeup bag. “Hey, ‘Tara. You still want my help with your makeup for your big date?”

“Yes, please,” Katara answered, Suki had far more experience with makeup than her.

Katara got up and the girls took a seat on Katara’s bed facing each other as Suki applied the makeup to Katara’s face. As Katara felt the soft makeup brush against her left eyelid, she heard Suki speak. “So, is he a good kisser?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes were still closed and she felt herself blush.

“Oh, so you _have_ made out with him,” Suki said in an excited tone.

“Yeah, when I went over to his apartment to do some math homework with him.” Now Suki was poking at her brows with something, but Katara didn’t complain.

“Ooooh,” Suki nudged her shoulder and both girls giggled. “Did he try choking you or something?”

“ _What_?” Katara asked, she was lucky Suki had moved her arm away, or else she might have gotten her eye stabbed with eyeliner.

“What? It’s a pretty standard kink.”

“That was our first time making out!”

Suki shrugged and handed the tube of mascara and lipstick to Katara for her to put it on.

As Katara reached across her bed to grab the makeup mirror from her desk, she spoke. “Honestly, I won’t be surprised if he asks to do anything like that tonight, he looks like the type to be pretty kinky.” Katara held the mirror to her face, Suki did a great job. “Suki, I look hot!”

“Damn right you do,” Suki responded.

Katara continued admiring herself in the mirror, feeling good about how she looked.

“You’re not going to tell Sokka that Jet’s taking me to a bar, right?” Katara asked. She didn’t want to make Suki lie to her boyfriend, but as her friend, she was hoping she would be okay with withholding a little bit of information from her brother who was prone to freak out about the smallest things.

“Of course not.” Suki held out her pinkie for her and Katara locked her pinkie in her own. They went out to the kitchen so Katara could have a snack so she wasn’t too hungry during her date.

“Do you want to go over some self-defense moves before he gets here?” Suki asked as she filled her cup up with tap water.

Katara shook her head, “I should be fine.” Katara, like most kids, took martial arts when she was younger.

There was a knock at the door and a big mischievous grin appeared on Suki’s face. The two girls looked at each other for a moment and Katara could tell what Suki was thinking. She whispered, “ _Suki, don’t._ ”

“What? I just want to say hi to him,” Suki whispered back and went for the door, her socks sliding against the floor.

“No, you want to do something embarrassing,” Katara lunged forward to stop her and wrapped her arms around Suki’s middle to hold her back.

Suki feigned a gasp, “I would _never_. I just want to make sure of his intentions with you!” Suki was giggling as she was trying to escape.

“You see, _that_. That is what I mean!”

Suki squirmed her way to freedom and closer to the door, “maybe I’ll ask if he has a choking kink.”

“Suki, I swear to g-“ Katara pulled Suki away from the door by her elbow. Suki kept giggling and through their stumbling, the corner of her elbow pushed her cup off the counter. Luckily the cup was plastic so it didn’t shatter, but it still made a noise loud enough to be heard through the door and the girls paused.

Suki picked up the cup and with a wave of defeat, walked to her room while loudly calling over her shoulder, “Good luck on your smoking hot date!”

Katara sighed, plastered a small flattering smile on her face, and stepped forward to get to the door, certain Jet was probably able to hear all that, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Jet was leaning against the door frame.

Katara was unsure of whether to kiss or hug him in greeting so she just opted to smile and said, “shall we go?”

They rode to the bar in Jet’s Jeep, it was white and black and didn’t have doors. The breeze felt nice in Katara’s hair, although chilly against her bare legs and lower arms.

“Have you ever been to a bar before?” Jet asked and turned his head to look at her for a moment before returning to watching the road. He had that charming sly half-smile on his face.

“No,” Katara responded honestly. When he first texted her about it, Katara brought up she was under the legal drinking age and Jet texted back it wouldn’t be a problem.

“Nice, I get to be a part of your first time.” Jet said and her heart skipped a beat.

Katara thought he would have to sneak her in, but they just walked right into the place, Jet’s hand on her back, leading her.

The bar was dimly lit with string lights on the ceiling and pendant lights over the bar counter. They made their way through the crowd to the tall bar stools and Katara reminded herself the goal was to only get a bit tipsy and not drunk.

“Do you know what you want?” Jet leaned closer to her to ask her over all of the sounds and she felt his breath on her ear.

“Um,” she looked around and she couldn’t see a menu anywhere, all she could spot was a tv playing some sports game a lot of people sitting in the tall stools were intently watching, “You pick for me.”

Jet glanced her up and down then called over the bartender. It was a woman with a red tattoo on her shoulder and dark smokey eyeshadow paired with her dark lip.

Jet greeted her and slipped her some cash with a wink, probably so she wouldn’t ask to check for Katara’s ID. “You working behind the stick tonight?” Jet asked.

“Sure am,” the woman responded. “What can I get you started on?”

“Two lagers,” Jet said.

The woman raised an eyebrow, “You’re not doing a shot of Devil’s Spring? You usually come here to do an Herb an Al.”

All the bar slang they were using went over Katara’s head, so she quietly watched the exchange.

Jet shook his head and spoke. “Not tonight. It’s best if neither of us gets drunk.” Jet set his hand on Katara’s shoulder with his thumb caressing her neck and Katara felt heat rise in her face. Thankfully, she would soon have alcohol she could blame her flushed face on.

“Aight, I’m on it.” The woman said.

“Thanks, June.” Jet said then turned and leaned his back against the counter, Katara followed suit and looked around the bar. There was a small platform stage with a karaoke machine people were drunkenly jamming out to. The girls at the bar were dressed anywhere from something as casual as jeans and a plain t-shirt to something as nice as a short skirt and heels, Most guys had on flannels or sports jerseys.

“You look really nice,” Jet said to her, “I forgot to say anything when I picked you up at the doorway.”

He had grabbed one of the small dishes of spiced cashews and was munching on them. He held them out to Katara and she took a few for herself into her hand and said, “thank you,” In a small voice. She internally kicked herself for being so shy, she wasn’t usually like this. She decided to blame it on being in a new and unusual atmosphere.

The people sitting at the bar cheered, the favored team must have been doing well. The bartender returned and handed them their drink. Katara told her thank you and the woman nodded before tending to someone else.

The glass of the amber drink was tall and cold in Katara’s hand, she went to take a sip, but stopped when Jet spoke. “Do you want a straw?”

Katara shook her head and tried her best to speak over the music, “No thanks, I don’t use plastic straws. They’re terrible for ocean life, you know?”

Jet smiled and nodded. He led her to the pool table closest to the brick wall. As they walked, Katara took a sip of her drink and tried not to cringe at the bitter taste of the first sip.

“You down to play pool?” Jet asked, since they were in the corner and away from all the sound, she could hear him a lot better.

“I don’t know how, you’ll have to teach me.” She did know, her father taught her and Sokka when she was younger. She was so good at it, it made Sokka mad when they would play while in middle school. She knew what she was doing though as Jet handed her a cue stick then stood behind her with his arms wrapped around each side of her as he told her the rules. His chest felt warm against her back. She took another sip and then they began to play.

By the fifth or so sip of her drink (she lost count), she began to feel a little buzzed. Jet asked if she wanted another round of beer and she told him yes with a giggliness in her voice. He brought her another for her and himself then played his turn. As they played, they went back and forth with flirting and talking about their classes.

Katara had won their game of pool and she raised both her hands in the air, loudly cheered, and Jet clapped for her. She had gone from buzzed to tipsy, but still wasn’t drunk, which was good.

“I’m going to go to the bathroom,” Katara said with one hand on Jet’s chest. How did that get there? When did they get so close? Maybe she was drunk, she didn’t feel like she was though. She’ll be careful to order something nonalcoholic to drink next.

“I’ll be here,” Jet responded.

Katara left to go check how flushed her face was in the bathroom mirror. The bathroom didn't appear to be very clean with the vandalized stalls and the sticky tile floor, but that didn’t bother Katara and luckily her face wasn’t too red. She put some pieces of hair back into place and called it good.

On her way back, she passed the karaoke singer and all the people who were singing loudly and offkey to a song that came out forever ago. She began to sway to the rhythm. She spotted Jet, who was watching her, and gestured for him to come over with her finger. He did as instructed.

Katara normally wasn’t a huge fan of dancing, it was probably the warm alcohol in her bloodstream and the bar’s vibe that made her loosen up much easier and relieve the nerves she was having earlier about the date.

They weren’t dancing against each other, but they were still moving around enough for her hair to fall from its style. Katara pulled the hair tie out the rest of the way and bent over and shook her hair out before standing back up straight and looking Jet in the eye. Hopefully, she had looked sexy or something.

Jet chuckled, Katara grinned.

“You wanna get out of here?” Jet asked.

Katara felt the smile on her face grow bigger. “Sure.”

“So what did you want to show me?” Katara asked with a tilt of her head. She had sobered up a bit in Jet’s car during the short drive to the park.

“This way,” Jet said.

They walked past the playground and picnic tables and stopped in front of a group of trees. Jet pointed his phone flashlight up and revealed a treehouse hidden well by the leaves.

“Oh cool! I always wanted to build one when I was younger.” Katara said.

“Do you wanna go up?” Jet asked.

“Yeah.” She found the blocks of wood nailed to the tree to form a ladder and climbed up. Jet was right behind her, promising to catch her if she slipped. It was small but there was enough room for them to both sit down on it with their legs dangling over the edge.

“So how did this treehouse come to be?” Katara asked.

“I found it my first semester and then it became a place for me and a couple of my friends to hang out. Usually after a night of bar-hopping.”

“Nice.” A small breezy gust of wind ran across Katara and she shivered.

“Are you cold?” Jet asked.

“A little, but I’m okay,” Katara answered.

Jet took off his leather jacket and put it over Katara’s shoulders. She blushed and put her hands through the sleeves.

Jet pulled something out of the pocket of the jacket and Katara looked closer, her eyes now completely adjusted to the darker light, and saw it was a vape pen. Jet took a hit of it and then held it out to Katara with a raised eyebrow and a smile.

Katara looked at the device and timidly took it into her fingers. She looked up at him, unsure of how to use it, but curious enough she wanted to try it, it would be another thing to cross off her list of experiences.

“You hold this button down,” he pointed to it, “and then hold the smoke in your mouth for a second and then release it. They’re a lot easier to not choke on your first time using one than cigarettes. This one has CBD in it, but not enough you’ll get high.”

Katara nodded and tried it. Interesting, so that’s what it felt like. She took another hit and then smiled up at him. They laughed and he took the pen back to take another hit.

“Thanks for showing me your treehouse,” Katara said, “and taking me to the bar.”

Jet tilted his chin down at her, “I’m glad you came, even though you kicked my ass at pool.”

Katara leaned her head back and laughed, “I lied to you earlier, my dad taught me how to play when I was younger.”

“I figured someone did,” Jet said.

“Did your dad teach you to play?” Katara asked.

The corners of Jet’s mouth fell. “No, one of the leaders at the group home taught me when I was eight.” Jet took another long hit.

“You were in a group home?” Katara asked before she could catch herself from prying.

Jet nodded. “Yeah. That’s how I met Longshot and Smellerbee. We were kids that didn’t have families, so we became one and added more people into our family as we went.”

Katara smiled and put her hand on his arm and he turned to look at her. “I understand about friends being family. Although I still have my dad and Gran Gran, I lost my mother when I was little. I told you before she was a political activist, she got killed by the Fire Sage mafia for fighting for what was right and speaking out against Comet Corporations.” Katara felt little pinpricks behind her eyes.

“My family was killed by the same people. I was too young when they were killed to know exactly what had happened, I just knew they didn’t deserve it. All I can remember from that night is all of the houses in my town up in flames and me watching as people were yelling and running around. Then I got put into the foster system and the rest was history. I made a new family with similar backstories and we made a pact to stop those people from doing any more harm no matter what it takes. We called ourselves the ‘Freedom Fighters’.”

Katara felt her heart beating. There was a lot more to this boy than she had originally pictured and she felt herself begin to like him more than she intended or thought she would. They were silent but were still staring into each other’s eyes. Katara slid her hand from where it was resting on his bicep up to his face and kissed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reminder, YES, this is a zutara fic, Jet is just a roadblock that we all have to get through together. Lol.
> 
> Next chapter will be posted February 2nd.
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	9. Everything is Embarrassing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellllooo. Just as a warning, there’s some minor sexual content in this chapter.

Katara sat on Jet’s bed, waiting for him as he finished doing his laundry. The navy sheets and white bedspread were made up nicer than the first time she was there, but they were still a little rough around the edges.

Since the time Jet took her to the bar and they made out in the treehouse, they had been at each other's places a couple of times and texted each other more frequently. Each time they hung out they made out, but the intensity was kept to a low level and Katara was open to it changing.

She spared another look around his room. It wasn’t as big as hers, but the apartment was probably cheaper than hers, or maybe not since it was three rooms, not four. There was a mini refrigerator under his bed containing beer and energy drinks, he always offered her one whenever she came by and she almost always accepted. On the windowsill was a joint and between the window and the bed was a desk, the bottom drawer was cracked open.

Inside appeared to be a large unopened bottle with the seal still on it labeled _‘Water-Based Lube’_ and right beside it was a box of condoms. She shut the drawer with her foot.

It’s not like she assumed Jet was a virgin, she knew it was highly likely he wasn’t. Katara had a feeling she was one of the only people who were still virgins at the university. Last night while on her phone in bed, Katara stumbled across an article titled ‘ _7 Ways to Reduce Pain During Your First Time Having Sex’._ Curious, she clicked the link and read the article. It wasn’t like she was _planning_ on having sex with Jet that day, but she was curious and it’s always good to be prepared.

Jet walked in with a basket of clean laundry and he set it down on the floor. He walked over to where she was sitting, leaned down, and kissed her, he tasted like his vape. She kissed him again and tugged him to sit beside her on the bed. She ended up sitting in his lap with her chest less than an inch apart from his.

It was obvious what he was going for as he played with the hem of her shirt so she bit back the nerve and with warm cheeks, pulled her t-shirt over her head and tossed it behind her. This was the first time she had taken any clothes off while making out with a boy. Besides her bralette, all she had on from the waist up was her mother’s necklace. As Jet went back to kissing her, he ran one hand up and down her back.

She felt something against her thigh begin to harden and she anxiously moved her hips when a loud ringing went off and Katara got out of his lap. “Is that the fire alarm?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Jet answered, he opened the door and looked out into the kitchen, “There’s no smoke coming from the kitchen so it must be somewhere in the building.”

Katara looked around for her shirt but didn’t see it anywhere around her. A weird smell filled the air and Jet looked at her with a very serious expression on his face. “I know that smell, we need to get out of here. _Right now_.”

“Alright,” Katara nodded and Jet pulled her with him as they ran out of his apartment. In the hallway, other people were leaving their apartments in various stages of disarray including in pajamas or shoeless. The scent was stronger and was causing Katara to have a headache. The alarms were blaring loud and at the opposite end of the hall, some smoke could be seen.

They made it to the parking lot where a bunch of tenants was standing around. The alarm could still be heard, but it was a lot fainter. Katara caught someone glancing at her state of undress and she untangled her fingers from Jet’s to wrap her arms around herself.

Jet took off the black leather jacket he seemed to always wear and put it around her shoulders. She put her arms through the sleeves and tried to zip up the zipper, but it was broken, so she just held it closed. She tilted her head and smiled up at him, “thanks.”

“You’re welcome.” He pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter out of his pocket and placed one in his mouth. He held the pack out to her but she shook her head, he shrugged and put the pack back in his jeans pocket, and lit his cigarette.

“How will we know when we’ll be let back in?”

“Who knows?” A voice came beside her, belonging to Smellerbee, walking beside her was Longshot. Katara had met both of them multiple times over the past while since her first date with Jet.

“Jet, we need to talk to you for a second,” Smellerbee said and glanced at Katara, “alone.”

Jet nodded and put his hand on Katara’s shoulder for a moment and then followed his friends. Katara watched as they walked around the building and out of eyesight. Katara took another glance around, a lot of people were talking to each other and those who weren’t appeared to be on their phones. Katara sighed. Her phone was currently on Jet’s bed inside the building that was potentially on fire, _great_.

As a form of entertainment, she moved her feet around and watched them as she stood in the slim motorbike parking space. She contemplated walking around or maybe even just going back to her apartment to get a shirt, but then Jet wouldn’t know where she was.

People stepped out of the way as a motorcycle came into the parking lot and the person on the bike parked in one of the few empty parking spaces beside Katara. The driver of the motorcycle took his helmet off and the first thing Katara noticed was the scar, of course, Zuko had somehow serendipitously parked next to her.

Since the time at the ice cream shop, they had seen each other in class, at points, it was a little awkward, but mostly it was fine. Neither of them ever mentioned what his sister or her brother had said and when the professor told the students to talk to one another, they barely spoke and only talked about whatever they were instructed to. There was a Tuesday right after the whole ice cream shop had been absent from class and when he came back, he had seemed to be more upset, but Katara acted as if it was of no concern for her.

Zuko ran a hand through his hair, noticed her standing there, and his frown deepened slightly. By now, Katara had recognized he had a permanent resting bitch face, she sucked in her cheek and narrowed her eyes.

Zuko turned his motorcycle off and swung his leg around to step closer to her. As he approached, he glanced around at everyone outside and probably noticed the faint alarm ringing as well.

“Hey. What’s going on?” He motioned with his head to all of the people standing around.

“The fire alarm went off throughout the whole building.”

“Is there a fire?” Zuko asked, his eyes widened a little.

“Isn’t that what Fire alarms are for?” Katara snarked. Zuko didn’t say anything, Katara sighed and spoke again. “I didn’t see a fire, but I did see smoke.”

She glanced back at his face, but his eyes weren’t on hers, instead of at her neck before he glanced back up. Katara hoped he was looking at her necklace, but she knew the purple hickey Jet had given her there was much more eye-catching, unfortunately.

“Was the smoke anywhere near apartment one thirty-two?”

That was Jet’s apartment, Katara narrowed her eyes and tilted her head, “Why?”

“That’s my apartment number,” he answered with his good eyebrow raised.

“Oh,” Katara’s back straightened, “ _You’re_ Jet’s other roommate?” Katara could only imagine how much Jet hated being roommates with Zuko.

“Uh… yeah?” Zuko observed the jacket she had wrapped around her. “So you’re the girl Jet must be seeing.”

Katara bit her lip and looked away. She began to feel self-conscious, worried Zuko had heard her and Jet making out during one of the times she was over. “Wait, I’ve been over to your apartment a bunch of times, but I haven’t seen you. Do you just live as a hermit in your room all day?”

Judging by Zuko’s reaction and the way he shuffled his feet, she was probably right. Katara giggled and Zuko rolled his eyes. “ _Or_ you just never leave Jet’s room. I also have things and responsibilities to do. I don’t just hang out with people all of the time.”

Katara wasn’t sure if that was meant to be a jab at her, but she felt like it might be. There was an unusual feeling between them. She placed her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at him, but couldn’t help the small smile on her face and the corner of Zuko’s lip was raised too.

His gaze dropped and his face turned pink and he turned his head away. Katara looked down, trying to figure out what had happened. When she put her hands on her hips, the jacket had opened and fully revealed the front of her torso, out of all of the bras and bralettes she owned, she probably chose the worst one to wear that day.

It was comfortable and very pretty and made her feel sexy, but the blue lace was definitely see-through which meant there was no way Zuko didn’t see her nipples.

Her face and neck felt hot, she quickly moved her hands from her hips back to holding the jacket closed. She spoke again and asked about his classes so the awkward tension could diffuse and both their blushes could fade. It led to some small talk which made Katara realize that despite his family and background and how irritating he might be, talking to him was kind of nice. Maybe it was a trait he picked up from his uncle, despite every other part of their conversational skills being so drastically different.

Katara even laughed at something self-deprecating Zuko said. When he scowled at her reaction, she laughed more. As she tilted her head back to laugh, She noticed Jet walking up to her and Zuko with one eyebrow raised with Smellerbee and Longshot behind him.

Jet stepped beside her, “Hey.”

“Hey,” She said back.

Katara sized up the two men she was standing by. Both were taller than her, but Jet seemed to be a little taller than Zuko. Zuko dressed nicer, like the white shirt with koi fish tucked into blue jeans he was wearing then, while Jet dressed more rugged. While Jet had his tattoos and piercings, the only thing Katara had seen from Zuko that made him look mysterious was the scar. While Zuko _could_ be pinned as having the misunderstood bad boy image like Jet but with a more clean-cut appearance, Katara didn’t feel like that description was quite right, but she didn’t know what the right description was.

She remembered some of the things Jet said about his other roommate who Katara now understood to be her classmate, like him being rude and commanding or as Jet put it, _‘he can be a real fucking dick’._

Jet put his arm around her with a small tight smile. Katara tilted her head to look up at him and he spoke, “Let’s talk with the Fighters,” Jet said.

”Alright,” She answered.

As Jet led her away with his arm still around her, Katara noticed as he took his cigarette out of his mouth for a moment to give Zuko a nod with a tight-lipped frown on his face and Zuko returned the gesture.

As Jet and his friends went on about a fond memory of a rebellious youth excursion, Katara turned her head to glance behind her at Zuko, who was on his phone. Katara turned her head back to the conversation, Jet was saying something about playing with firecrackers.

The ringing of the alarms from the building came to a stop and the landlord announced they could all go back in and there wasn’t any fire, just smoke. Katara didn’t waste any time to shuffle through the crowd and head back up to Jet’s apartment while he continued talking.

Katara went straight into Jet’s room and searched for where her shirt landed earlier and found it on the floor behind Jet’s speaker. Katara picked up the t-shirt, walked to Jet’s bed, and grabbed her phone out of her bag to check the time. It was getting later than she wanted, not likely having enough time to get her homework done.

She pulled off Jet’s jacket and laid it down on his bed. As she pulled her t-shirt over her head and onto her body, the door of the room opened, and in walked Jet, “Sorry about the interruption earlier.”

Katara shrugged, “it’s okay, it’s not like it was your fault,” she swung her bag over her shoulder.

“You leaving already?” Jet asked.

“Yeah, unfortunately, I’ve got some stuff I have to do.”

Jet nodded, “I can drive you back to your apartment if you want.”

Katara held up her hands, “No, it’s really okay. I have to stop by the library first.” She walked over, leaned up on her toes, and pulled his head down to kiss him on his cheek.

He straightened back up and put his hands on her hips. “Okay, well I’ll see you later.”

“See you later,” Katara responded. He pulled her into a kiss before she opened the door and walked out of his room.

In the kitchen, Zuko was chopping up some ginger on a cutting board. Katara paused, remembering how he saw when she accidentally revealed her tits to him. It was probably obvious to him and everyone else outside who saw her what she and Jet were doing when the fire alarm went off.

Katara didn’t say anything to him, she tilted her head down and walked straight towards the exit. Just as she opened the door to leave, she heard him say “see you in class tomorrow.”

She looked over her shoulder to look at him and saw he had a smirk on his face and was looking right at her. She timidly felt her heated up face and left through the door and closed it behind her.

_It felt good, even better than she thought it would. Katara and Jet were continuing from where they left off before the fire alarm went off. His tongue was in her mouth and she ground down against him and circled her hips. Her shirt was off and she helped him with taking his own off too after he practically ripped off his old leather jacket. His tan skin against her own felt magnetic with her chest pressed right up against his bare front._

_He caressed the skin on her stomach and it made her shiver. It was a place she often felt insecure about, but right then it felt good. His other hand squeezed her left breast hard. He had done the same thing before, but this time it wasn’t over her shirt. The only obstruction was her thin lace bralette her pebbled nipples were poking against. The material made her squirm as it rubbed the sensitive skin there._

_She was panting and so was he, their panting was in sync. He tossed her from his lap onto the bed and crawled on top of her to suck at her nipples through the lace. His hands were going up and down her outer thighs as he watched her facial expression and then the palm of his hand pressed against her denim covered center and her head fell back as she moaned. When her head returned and she looked at him again, he was nipping at her collarbone. Somehow, his hair had become darker and his skin had become paler. Then he lifted his head and Katara gasped._

_It wasn’t Jet anymore, it was Zuko. Their faces were inches apart from each other, his narrowed sharp gold eyes were looking into hers, and he had on that same smirk he had on in the kitchen. The burnt skin framing his left eye was all the more sensual._

_He licked his lower lip and pulled up her bra, and with his eyes still on her own, he lowered his mouth to the valley between her breasts. He closed his eyes as he sucked down, leaving a mark, and it looked as if he was enjoying it as much as her. He pressed his palm even harder against her core and she bucked up and her whole body felt hot and-_

_And then the scene froze as a beeping sound could be heard._

Katara opened her eyes and quickly grabbed her phone from her desk to turn off her alarm. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself down after the scene she just experienced in her sleep. She would definitely need to take a shower before she got ready for her classes. She rubbed her eyes, pulled back the covers, and got out of bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fire alarm scene is unfortunately based on a real experience. (F in the chat).
> 
> Next chapter will be out February 5th.
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board (including a reference to what Katara’s bra looked like). [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, and feel free to drop an ask while you’re there! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	10. Modern Loneliness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welcome to another chapter, y’all!

Like most days, Zuko started his day with a long shower before his classes after doing a morning workout. Afterward, he did other various things to waste time. It all felt numb. That day, Zuko contemplated what to wear to his classes more than he normally would, trying to make getting ready feel less pointless. He eventually settled on a red jacket with a gold dragon on it that belonged to his uncle when he was younger and would spend more time on his motorcycle.

Zuko walked into the kitchen. Jet and Longshot were leaning against the counter and speaking. When Zuko entered, they went silent. They glanced at him then back at each other. _Great_.

Jet was impartial to him when they first became roommates until it changed. Longshot had always been fine. He was a man of few words so he would nod at him, but Zuko often ignored it whenever he was in a bad mood. Which, looking back, was often. He had been kind of an asshole to his roommates.

At the beginning of the school year, Zuko thought he was better than them due to the beliefs he had leftover from living with his father and the beliefs Azula had pounded into him because of their family and his own insecurities. With everything he learned two weeks ago from Iroh, he knows his family means shit for him being a valuable person.

Jet had his leather jacket back on. Zuko’s mind brought up Katara wearing Jet’s jacket while they were outside waiting for the fire alarm ringing to end. Zuko didn’t know why it annoyed him that particular day, it just did.

Jet had a cigarette in his hand and a can of beer open on the counter. Zuko checked the time on his phone. It was almost noon. Zuko used to hate Jet smoking in the apartment but he eventually gave up.

Zuko had learned some rumors about Jet from Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee after the first time they had come over. Especially from Azula, since they shared a psychology class in the past. Zuko heard Jet was once part of a frat that got disbanded because it turned out to be more like a cult than the university was okay with, but that could have been just a rumor.

Zuko pulled his water bottle out of his bag and began to fill it in the sink. Jet and Longshot were still quiet. So, feeling uncomfortable, Zuko spoke. “I didn’t know you knew Katara. I have a class with her I’m heading to now.” Zuko didn’t look at Jet as he screwed the water bottle cap on and listened to his roommate’s reply.

“Huh. She never mentioned knowing you,” Jet responded. From the tone of his voice, he was clearly trying to get Zuko to either stop talking to him or leave. Smellerbee entered the kitchen from Jet’s room and glared at Zuko. He was sure he hadn’t even ever had a conversation with her.

Zuko, not wanting to stay long enough to make himself some food, decided he’d head to class early and grabbed an apple on his way out the door. Since he was leaving for class so early, he would walk to class instead of taking his motorcycle.

‘ _Honestly, fuck Jet_ ,’ Zuko thought after he closed the door. He remembered the time Jet tried to hook up with Azula at a party the previous semester. She, of course, having higher standards, gave a firm no.

It took a couple of days of processing for him to do it, but Zuko went over to Azula’s place to speak to her about everything Iroh told him about their family. She took the news a lot better than he did.

_Zuko knocked on the door, and Mai answered. “Hey,” She greeted. She had her backpack on, she was probably about to head to class._

_“Hey, Mai,” He nodded in response as he entered through the door and walked into the apartment. Mai gave a nod back and then left through the door. Zuko glanced through the living room and kitchen but didn’t see his sister anywhere, so he tried her room._

_The door was open and inside Ty Lee and Azula were sitting on her bed on top of the white covers and gray pillows. Ty Lee was laying on her stomach with her head at the foot of the bed, filling out her planner. Azula was sitting at the head of the bed with her back against the wall and was filing down her nails to be less pointed. Their outstretched legs were casually pressed against each other’s._

_Ty Lee sat up to adjust the red turtleneck and pink t-shirt she was wearing to lay more comfortably and that’s how she noticed Zuko. “Zuko! You haven’t been here in a while.”_

_“Hi, Ty Lee,” Zuko greeted and stepped into the room. Azula’s room was very uniquely… Azula. All of the rooms in the girls’ apartment were very themselves. Azula’s room featured red glowing string lights from the bottom of the full-sized bed frame. There was a black set of clothing drawers and on top of it was a couple of high-end bottles of perfume and a pair of handcuffs Zuko always chose to ignore. Unlike the other girls’ rooms, Azula didn’t have any pictures or posters on her wall, instead, she had some dried flowers hanging that Mai and Ty Lee had once picked for her._

_Azula pulled out her earbuds and looked up at him. “Brother. What a surprise. What brings you here?” She placed her hand on her chin, the red tip of one of her now-rounded fingernails touching her red painted bottom lip._

_“I needed to talk to you about something important.” Zuko, feeling a little uncomfortable, put his hands in the pockets of his pants._

_She raised one eyebrow. “What is it?”_

_Zuko looked away and didn’t say anything for a moment. Azula rolled her eyes and then spoke, “Ty Lee, could you give me and my_ dear _brother a moment to chat.”_

_“Sure,” Ty Lee responded. She left her planner and collection of colorful pens on the bed when she got up. Despite wearing jeans, she effortlessly bent over into a handstand and walked out of the room on her hands, closing the door behind her with one of her feet._

_When the door closed, Azula turned her attention back to him with her head slightly tilted and a smirk on her face, “Yes?”_

_Zuko made his way to sit on the bed. Azula pulled her legs up and crossed them under her gingham skirt to make room for him to sit. The black platform boots couldn’t have been comfortable to sit on top of._

_He took a deep breath then relayed everything Iroh had told him to Azula, only lightly touching on the parts about their mother because it was what hurt the most. Thankfully, he was able to say everything without displaying too much emotion, and the only emotion he displayed was anger and not sadness, hurt, and pain._

_“...interesting,” was how Azula responded as she pulled a hair off of her shirt. Zuko was kind of confused on how she wasn’t pissed off, but also not really._

_“Yeah,” Zuko said._

_“I had my suspicions the business had connections to the mafia.”_

_Zuko’s eyes snapped to hers, “You_ knew _?” He clenched his jaw_.

_Azula waved her hand and narrowed her eyes. “Calm down, I didn’t know for certain.” She left the conversation at that and changed the subject issues involving Zuko’s lack of dating life and their Uncle’s tea shop._

_The first of which Zuko wasn’t too keen to talk about and the second Azula didn’t really care and even yawned as he spoke. It was a fair trade-off. He expected her to make fun of him for caring about anything they talked about, but she didn’t. They continued one of the only civil conversations they ever had as Azula texted Ty Lee she could come back in._

Zuko's time frame of reacting to the issue of the secrets of his family business that he seemed to be the last to know about, was a lot longer than Azula’s.

During that time, he had felt sick and stayed in bed a lot, and even missed a couple of classes. He didn’t have very many shifts at The Jasmine Dragon and when he did, he felt lucky Iroh either wasn’t there or was easily avoidable. Zuko felt too awkward and unsure of what to say to him. It felt like he had let his uncle and the few people around him, down. He wasn’t even sure what for.

He spent time searching through thousands of articles about the family business. Comet Corporations was large and had branches of clothes, food, stocks, and more, so finding articles mentioning the company were easy to find.

Each article added to the company’s squeaky clean image with a picture of Ozai’s perturbing grin. So, he looked up smaller foreign news sources that had named terrible local circumstances. Most of those smaller news sources that had been brave enough to pin the connection and name the company had gone out of print.

After his conversation with Azula, Zuko had gotten back to his apartment. Katara was there in the parking lot and they had a conversation while the fire alarm rang throughout the building.

It was surprisingly nice talking to her, but he couldn’t get out of his head how during the first time they sat next to each other, she said that people don’t change. In that same argument, he fought out having loyalty to your family. It added to his struggle with who he was and what to believe. He realized he didn’t know how to be a good person and not feel lost.

Zuko made it to the classroom inside of the old building and glanced at Katara’s seat. She wasn’t there yet. Zuko sat down in his spot. He wasn’t the first one of the students in the classroom; he rarely ever was. He didn’t want any of his classmates to speak to him, not that it had ever been a problem before.

He had an array of thoughts about Katara. She seemed like the type to be annoyingly stubborn and for a moment there he thought she hated him. She still could, he reminded himself. Although he found her to be annoying at first, he didn’t mind her anymore. Infuriatingly, she was right about his family, but he didn’t feel like he could ever tell her that.

He managed to coincidentally look up right at the time Katara entered the classroom. When she saw him, a light brush spread on her face and she looked away from him.

Unwittingly, Zuko’s gaze drifted down to her neck. The hickey was still there. It was still purple, but she had tried to put some kind of makeup over it. She sat down at her desk.

He spoke without even taking a moment to think about it. “Why are you dating Jet?” Once the words had left his mouth, he realized he ended their streak of barely speaking in class.

Katara raised her eyebrows. “Why do you care?”

He didn’t know what to say, so he shrugged his shoulders and then spoke. “How long have you known him for?”

Katara kept her eyes on him as she unpacked her bag. “I met him earlier this semester.”

Zuko raised his good eyebrow. “That guy is kind of a lot. I’m pretty sure he’s some sort of power-hungry maniac with an obsession with ‘ _fixing the system_ ’. I wouldn’t be surprised if he drops out of school at some point and out of the blue and starts an—I don’t know— _clan_ or something.”

She looked as if she wasn’t listening to him anymore, but Zuko continued pestering her about his roommate. “He also has this gross habit of loudly spitting out his sunflower seed shells.”

Zuko knew that last comment was childish and by the way Katara rolled her eyes at him, Zuko knew that she did too.

“I’m sure you’re not the perfect person to be roommates with, either,” Katara said, “Besides, I like dating Jet, it’s made me more fun.”

Zuko didn’t know how to respond because he felt like he couldn’t relate.

The professor came in and started class. Multiple times throughout the lecture, Zuko glanced over at the girl sitting next to him, more specifically, the splotch on her neck.

The professor called out for each of the students to grab out their textbook and each read a section out loud. Zuko saw the panic on Katara’s face and felt the corner of his mouth raise.

“You forgot your textbook?” Zuko taunted as he grabbed his own out of his bag.

Katara narrowed her eyes at him and frowned. It made his smirk widen. Zuko volunteered to be the first one to read, which meant the second person to read would be Katara. He finished reading the section and before he could stop it from happening, Katara quickly stood up and leaned over her desk. The side of her arm brushed his chest as she snatched his textbook and placed it on her desk to go right into reading the next paragraph. The action left his eyes wide for a moment, but he blinked back to normal.

When Katara finished and the next person started reading, he was going to pull the book back to piss her off, but instead, he quietly scooted his desk closer to hers and whispered, “Let’s share.”

Katara nodded and they both quietly moved their desks against the other’s. Their knees and feet touched and neither of them moved away. For a second while following the words on the page, Katara bit her lip. Zuko swallowed.

Katara kept her eyes on the pages of the textbook and only looked up when the professor spoke. She was looking right at Zuko and Katara and their desks were put together with her lips tight and said for everyone to discuss what they read with the person sitting next to them.

Zuko was the first to restart the conversation. They went over what they read with a little bit of pettiness and arguing and it reminded Katara of that first class they sat near each other, but this time there was a lot less anger and spite involved in their debate. It also felt different this time because they were still sitting so close.

When the class seemed to be done with their discussions, the professor called for each of the students to read the next small section individually, which led to Zuko and Katara sitting— what felt like— even closer than they were sitting previously to read his textbook together. As Katara’s cheeks began to warm, she cursed herself for this class being the one time she left her textbook at home. It hadn’t even been an accident, that morning when she was getting ready she purposely left the textbook on her desk since she didn’t think she would need it since they hadn’t even used the textbook in class much.

Zuko was so close to her that his bergamot smell wafted in her nose and it was the same as when she smelled it on him when she went grocery shopping with Sokka. Katara noticed the veins in his large pale hand as it turned the page. She pulled her attention back to the print, but focusing on the words they were supposed to be reading had gotten even harder as her mind drifted to the dream she had the night prior.

Specifically, the memory of his scar flooded into her mind. As his eyes were so focused on the textbook, she tried her best to inconspicuously observe the right side of his face, she was sitting on his side without the scar like she usually did.

It wasn’t the first time in her life she had a dirty dream and in this one, they stopped at foreplay, but that didn’t change the fact that it was weird he was even in it. She looked up what her dream could mean and found a broad scope of answers from different websites so she gave up trying to figure it out.

When class ended and Zuko scooted his desk back to its usual spot then he got up to leave the room, he turned and Katara took that time to observe the scar on his face more. She wondered what it would feel like to touch and what it would feel like to have. She assumed it was rough to the touch and hung heavy and his face, but she didn’t know what else it felt like psychologically.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oooh, Zuko is starting to notice Katara more. 😉 Also, poor Zuko, having to process everything that he’s learned.
> 
> Next chapter will be out February 9th.
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board (including a reference to what Katara’s bra looked like). [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, and feel free to drop an ask while you’re there! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	11. Honey Lavender

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dang, I wish I worked in a tea shop.

After getting home from her last class of the day, Katara was craving lavender tea with honey and after searching around in her kitchen, all she was able to find was an old box of peppermint tea and no honey. She weighed her options: she could go to the store, but Sokka was busy so she didn’t know who would take her, or she could go to The Jasmine Dragon where the tea would taste phenomenally better anyway.

She decided on the former and knocked on each door of her roommates to see if they wanted to join, but none of them were home. As she left her apartment, she texted Haru to see if he wanted to join her, but he texted back saying he was at work. That was fine, she was alright with going to the tea shop alone and maybe ask Iroh if was up for another round of Pai Sho.

The first thing Katara noticed when she walked into The Jasmine Dragon was it was packed even fuller than the first time she went with Haru, the bell ringing on the door couldn’t even be heard over the sound of people talking. She looked at the chalkboard menu and saw there was a new special paired with a deal, explaining why there were so many customers on a late Monday afternoon.

”Miss Katara, how nice to see you again!” Iroh greeted as he walked behind the counter and set a full tray down. He wiped some sweat from his gray brow away with the back of his sleeve, “how have you been?”

”Pretty good,” Katara said, still looking around at all of the busy tables and the staff scurrying around to deliver orders and clean up small spills. “The place is really busy tonight.”

Iroh let out a deep chuckle from his large belly. “Better busy than empty. I called in all of the staff to have a shift today, but it seems my nephew is running late.”

Katara nodded. After her class with Zuko last Thursday, Katara concluded she didn't hate her classmate, not really, she just felt… _irritation_ towards him.

“If you’d like, I’d love to help you out since it’s so busy. I have nothing else to do tonight and I have experience waitressing at my dad’s friend’s restaurant.”

Iroh’s dark brown eyes crinkled as his lips turned up into a smile, “Thank you, Katara. I would appreciate your help for as long as you are willing. Feel free to head home whenever you feel as though you would like to.”

Iroh led her to the backroom past the kitchen and handed her a green apron to put on. Her job for the night would be to take orders from the front counter, serve tables, and she could of course ask Iroh or another worker if she had any questions.

Katara had a fun time working around the tea shop. The tea shop always smelled good and the jasmine was soothing as she walked around the tables and poured out tea to customers with a smile on her face. The customers varied in ages from younger kids with parents, to young adults attending the university, to elderly people who frequented The Jasmine Dragon often. Customers often left tips, which she brought to Iroh, but each time he told her to keep them.

About an hour into working, Katara was standing behind the counter, rearranging all of the mismatching teacups on the hooks when she heard the bell ring, so she turned around to greet a customer with a bright smile, but saw it was Zuko walking in with a scowl on his face. His expression changed to a confused one when his eyes met hers and she timidly lifted her hand and waved. He gave a quick nod of his head and looked around the shop, spotted his uncle, and walked straight to him, and started speaking quietly.

Katara continued what she was doing and then moved onto placing some books left on the tables back onto the bookshelf. When she finished, she piled up some dishes onto a tray, a couple of teacups left with some tea. She brought them to the kitchen where she almost ran straight into Zuko but was able to catch the tray at the last second without too much of a clatter. He now had on a green apron over his clothes. A little embarrassed, she didn’t say anything to him and moved past him to the sink. When she walked back out, Zuko was talking to and refilling the cup of a girl with a braid in her hair and a camera strap around her neck, sitting at the front table. She hoped spilling tea around him wouldn’t become a common occurrence.

Katara helped another server carry heavy trays over to the tables in the corner and by the large window. The customers were slowly starting to leave and the workload was beginning to lighten.

As the shift continued, she interacted with Zuko a couple of times while running orders out and discovered working with him wasn’t as terrible as she expected. Being Iroh’s nephew must have blocked out his overall unapproachable demeanor because older customers often stopped the young man for a second to say hello to him. She observed how distant he was while people were talking to him and as he silently worked, seemingly caught up in his thoughts.

Iroh must have caught Katara watching his nephew because he took a step closer from behind her and spoke. “It’s nice that my nephew has at least here as a place to talk to people,” Iroh said, hinting Zuko didn’t really have friends or people he would talk to.

Katara kept watching him and noticed how lonely Zuko must have been. She let that thought fade quickly as she continued working. As the shift came to a close, Iroh sent most of the staff home and Katara stayed behind, leaving just her, Zuko, and Iroh.

Katara helped a child stop crying after he accidentally broke a teacup and as soon as the little boy and his nice family left, The Jasmine Dragon closed. Iroh told Katara she didn’t have to stay any longer and could go home, but she insisted on staying to help clean up for the day.

Iroh was in his office, filling out some paperwork on his computer and Katara joined Zuko in the kitchen to handwash all of the dirty dishes filling up the large sink. She picked up a sponge and started scrubbing away in silence but was the first to speak. “Getting to work here tonight was fun.”

They were standing a foot apart side by side and she could clearly see the line between Zuko’s brows as his attention was hard focused on the floral-painted ceramic teapot he was cleaning out with a scrub brush. “How did you get roped into working as a tea server for the night?”

“I volunteered after I saw how busy it was.”

There was an awkward lull in the conversation before Zuko spoke again. “You were good with the customers. I almost got a headache from that crying kid.”

“Thanks,” Katara said as she stacked the now clean plate onto the dish drying rack. “You’re not very good with them.” she teased.

Zuko grumpily snorted.

“I’m just kidding. You have the potential to be better with people than you realize.” It was true, she saw it with the customers.

“I’m just kidding. You have the potential to be better with people than you realize.”

Zuko’s hands paused at her words. He blinked a couple of times then continued. Zuko helped Katara sort out what needed to be hand washed and what went in the conventional dishwasher.

Zuko listened as she filled the air with chatter about classes and working. She brought up an elderly woman customer who was overly friendly with Zuko. He responded by rolling his eyes but felt warmth spread from the back of his neck. Zuko said something snarky in return and she lightly splashed him with some of the sudsy water.

It only landed on his apron, but it still made Katara give a light-hearted laugh. It reminded him of when he was little and Azula would trick him into falling into the pond. This felt far less menacing and the expression on Katara’s face was mischievous, not wicked.

“Is this to make up for when you almost stumbled and spilled tea all over me earlier?” Zuko raised his brow.

Katara stopped laughing, bit her lip, and looked away. With a smirk, Zuko splashed some water from the sink back at her.

Some soap landed in her long braid pulled over her shoulder. He politely pulled the soap away from the thick intertwined strands and as he did so, he could feel her watch his hands.

It made Zuko remember how in class, without even looking, he knew she was staring at the large burn scar on his face before he picked up his stuff and left. It had made the skin there feel tight and the rest of him feel apprehensive.

Earlier that night, Zuko stood in the bathroom connected to his room and looked at his facial appearance in the mirror. He had started his routine by touching the normal skin around the scar and then timidly touched the edges directly with straining fingers.

As his fingertips grazed the raised texture, he felt bile rise in his throat as well as anger and shame. He swallowed all of it down. It pulled his mind away and distracted himself with the fact that it was about time to head to work.

His phone vibrated from his pocket and he fished it out, expecting it to be his uncle, who was the only person who ever called him. Instead, the word on the screen said ‘ _DAD_ ’. Zuko answered the call immediately, not wanting to let this chance slip away. “Hello.”

“ _Zuko_ ,” His father greeted from the other end. Zuko was already able to pick up the slight slur in his father’s deep gruff voice. He must have had a drink or two.

“How have you been?” Zuko asked, but Ozai ignored the question.

“ _What are your grades_?”

Zuko swallowed. “All A’s with one B.”

“ _Hmmm,_ ” Ozai hummed in response followed by the sound of a liquid sloshing from the bottle into his mouth.

His dad asked a couple of other questions to make sure Zuko was in check and hadn’t done anything stupid lately. The man didn’t bother asking his son how he’s been or if he had been eating healthy. Zuko’s skin felt itchy during the entire phone call.

“ _Have you declared a major yet?_ ” Ozai asked. Zuko could tell the man was sneering. 

“Not yet,” Zuko felt the corners of his mouth tighten. “I'm thinking I’ll choose something having to do with business-” 

‘ _So I could maybe still take over the family one day_ ,’ he thought but didn’t say.

His dad laughed and he didn’t comment on it. He finished by mentioning Azula and ended the phone call.

As the dial sound cut out, Zuko took shallow breaths from his nose. When his breathing evened back out, he stood there for a second and then checked the time on his phone. “ _Shit_.”

Since he started working at The Jasmine Dragon, he had rarely ever been late to work. He hopped on his motorcycle and hustled over.

The first thing he noticed when he walked in the door was how busy it was. The second thing he noticed was Katara standing behind the counter wearing a green apron. He didn’t take the time to ask, he found his uncle, apologized for being late, said he would explain what happened later, and got straight to work.

As he worked, he said hi to Jin and did his best to endure through painful small talk with customers.

Now as their after closing cleaning continued, Katara and he moved on from the dishes to wiping down each of the wooden tables.

“Doing this reminds me a little bit of the chores my Gran Gran used to have me do with Sokka, my brother,” Katara said while spraying the table next to the one he was cleaning. “Did you have to do a lot of chores with your sister when you were little?”

“No,” Zuko responded. He realized he cut the conversation short. “What is your brother like?”

“He used to be an arrogant dumbass,” Katara said and it caused Zuko’s eyes to widen. “But after he met his girlfriend, Suki, he became a respectful simp.” The corner of her mouth was fondly turned upwards. “What’s your sister like?”

“Scary. She’s studying juvenile corrections and criminology, but sometimes I think she might be a sociopath. A smart one.”

It was clear Katara didn’t realize he was kind of serious when she laughed. “Are you the older or the younger of the two?” They moved on from the tables and were now cleaning the counters.

“Older. You?” He didn’t talk about family when it pertained to him. Nobody ever asked.

“I’m the younger.”

Uncle came in from the kitchen carrying a tray with a teapot, three teacups, and sesame cookies. He set the tray down on the table near them. “Here, as a thank you for staying late to clean up.” He poured the tea from the pot and turned to Katara, “You mentioned earlier that you were craving lavender tea with honey. Think of it as a thank you for offering to work here on such short notice. It’s on the house.”

Katara looked like she was about to argue, but Zuko knew there was no point. There was no arguing with Uncle.

“I insist, especially since you won’t let me compensate you for your work.”

Katara closed her mouth and sat at the table. Iroh followed suit and gestured for Zuko to do the same.

They started a conversation about the changing season and what the weather was like for Katara growing up so far in the south.

Zuko glanced at the chalkboard. Lavender tea wasn’t on the menu for the day. His uncle made it special for Katara and them to share in the closed tea shop.

Katara’s phone buzzed from the table. Her face fell when she looked at her phone screen. “I didn’t realize how late it is. I should probably head home soon.”

Iroh waved his hand. “Zuko can give you a ride home.”

Zuko’s eyes turned back and forth between his uncle and Katara.

“Oh, that’s alright, I can walk.” Katara tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and took small bites of a cookie.

“Nonsense,” Iroh spoke, “I taught my nephew better than to let a nice pretty girl walk home alone this late when he could give her a ride. That is unless she would much rather walk back home by herself.”

Zuko annoyingly felt embarrassed.

Katara looked over at him and he was silently praying his blush was quickly fading. “Is that alright with you?” She asked.

“Yeah,” Zuko said.

Iroh said goodbye and cleaned up the dishes. Zuko led her outside to his parked motorcycle. Katara had the side of her lip pulled under her teeth.

“Have you ever ridden on a motorcycle before?” Zuko asked as he handed the black helmet to her. He only had one. 

“No,” she replied honestly, “But I'm not nervous. I just don’t know what to do.”

Zuko showed her how to get on and said, “now hold my shoulders tight and don’t throw us off balance.” He turned the key and turned the engine on.

It was pleasant outside and still decently light out since the winter weather was nearly over. She spoke directions to her place into his ear as he drove.

They made it to the front of her apartment building alive. He stayed sitting on his bike as she hopped off and handed the helmet to him. “Thank you for driving me home,” Katara said.

“It was no big deal.”

“Right,” Katara said, “So, um, Jet, and I by extension, is throwing a party this weekend. You should come.”

Zuko leaned forward. “Sure.” It sounded more like a question, which he guessed it kind of was.

Katara nodded. She wasn’t looking at his face. “Cool. I’ll give you the information tomorrow during class.”

“Alright,” Zuko said. “I’ll see you then,” he pulled the helmet over his head.

“See you then,” Katara responded and turned and walked into the building.

Zuko started the engine and began to drive away. He wasn’t sure why Katara invited him. Maybe it was because he gave her a ride home and she did it as a thank you. Whatever it was, he didn’t smile when she gave him the invite, but he did appreciate it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you haven’t noticed by now, lavender happens to be a motif in this story. 😉 OOHHH ZUTARA BONDING, TEA DRINKING, AND TEASING OF A PARTY.
> 
> Next chapter will be out February 12th.
> 
> I added to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	12. Super Duper Party People

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is longer than the previous couple, so that’s exciting. 
> 
> Warning: this chapter includes references to drug use and scenes with large alcohol intake. More than I have included in previous chapters. So if that’s a trigger of yours, I recommend proceeding with caution. 🖤

Katara’s palms had become so sweaty she had to wipe her hands off on the sides of her black ripped jeans. The party would be starting soon, but she was determined to have a cool facade and not convey this was her first real party. Jet had told her earlier in the evening it was likely this party would have a lot of attendees. The frat house it was in belonged to a couple of people Jet knew, Katara had asked him if they were friends and Jet responded by saying they were more like uncomfortable acquaintances. She had come early with Jet, and he had gone upstairs to talk to them.

Earlier in the week, Katara told people, (including her roommates, their significant others when she saw them), about the party and invited them to it, and invited her main group of friends through their group chat. Katara had double-checked the message contained all of the information needed before she clicked send.

Katara was in Sokka’s room, sitting at the light wooden desk, while Sokka laid on his bed that seemed to only be made when Suki came over. His room was relatively bare, mostly just messy. There wasn’t much on the walls and on the floor was a gray rug as well as some dirty clothes seeming to have missed the laundry basket in the corner.

Sokka was sprawled out on the blue and gray bedding with his Gameboy in his hand, playing, _and losing_ , against Aang at pokemon. He took a short break from the game to look up at her and speak. “I don’t like that guy.”

“Who? Ash?” Katara feigned confusion.

Sokka stuck out his tongue and sat up. “No. You’re _boyfriend_ ,” He said the word like he was disgusted by it, “Jet.”

Katara rolled her eyes and turned in the stiff chair to face him better. Her brother and Jet had met at her apartment a week prior. “You don’t like anyone at first.”

Sokka narrowed his eyes and jutted out his chin. “Not true. I liked Suki right when I first met her.”

“But she didn’t like you.”

Sokka huffed and grumbled something Katara couldn’t hear as he laid back down and picked the Gameboy back up.

When Katara attempted to casually mention the party to Zuko after he drove her home, it came out more like asking if he was going to be there instead of inviting him. During class the next day, she gave him all of the details of when the party was and where it would be held and he responded by saying he went to a party there earlier in the semester.

‘ _Of course, even Zuko, the guy who gives off the biggest party pooper vibes in the world, has been to a party and not me_.’ She thought.

She never told Jet she invited Zuko, but she didn’t think it would be too big of a deal. Considering how many people were supposed to come, maybe they wouldn’t even see each other. To prepare for the party, Katara made Sokka drive her to the grocery store to buy four bags of wasabi chips.

Katara searched through the fraternity’s kitchen cupboards to find large bowls for the chips and luckily found some amongst the mostly empty shelves and drawers containing loose Tupperware. She emptied the bags and walked over to the small hanging mirror by the entrance to the sitting room. She pushed a piece of hair behind her ear, checked to see if any of the dark lipstick she was wearing had gotten onto her teeth, and pulled a piece of lint away from the blue velvet material of her cropped shirt.

From the mirror, Katara was able to see Jet step close behind her and she turned and smiled at him. He pulled his vape out of his mouth and exhaled. Some of the smoke got into Katara’s face, but she didn’t wave it away, and he leaned down and kissed her.

Loud footsteps came down from the stairs and two guys entered the kitchen. One had long hair tied up like Sokka liked to wear, but unlike Sokka’s, it wasn’t shaved with arrows in the back. His short button-up shirt was mostly open, revealing his buff bare chest. The other had a backward baseball cap with hair reaching his shoulders and had thin eyebrows.

They introduced themselves as Chan and Ruon-Jian and started conversing about the bar Jet took her to on their first _official_ date.

“It’s a lot better than the bar on South 3rd Street,” Chan said.

“I prefer the one on 6th,” Ruon-Jian responded. He grabbed a couple of six-packs of beer out of the fridge to go along with the keg, the cans likely to be littered all over the front yard the next morning. He held a couple out for each of them to take. Katara accepted hers with a short nod of her head and a ‘thank you’.

Other people came down the stairs to the more general area and Chan went to the living room to start the music. Jet had put his arm around her waist and his hand shifted to be resting on her backside as he took a sip of his drink. Katara popped open the can and took a short sip of her own, casually drinking had become a lot more common since she started seeing Jet.

People Katara didn’t know came in through the door without knocking and left snacks and alcohol they brought with them on the counter. Two guys who were twitching said they would ‘ _go set up in the bathroom_ ’ and Jet nodded his head. The music was loud and catchy and Katara began humming along while listening to the conversations other people had.

Katara said ‘hello’ and ‘thanks for coming to the party’ to Jet’s friends. Smellerbee and someone who Katara hadn’t met yet but heard about named Sneers showed up first and then Longshot came in from the back entrance.

Toph was the first person Katara knew to show up. She knocked at the front door and Katara answered and standing beside Toph was Meng. Katara opened the door wider for them to come in. “Hey, guys. Thanks for coming.”

“Thanks for inviting us,” Toph said. Meng had already walked past to go to the backyard. “I didn’t know what to wear so I put this on,” She was wearing a green tank top over a white t-shirt and dark pants with tennis shoes.

“You look great,” Katara affirmed. Toph wrapped her hand around Katara’s forearm and Katara led her to the kitchen. Once there, Toph said she was ready to party and picked up a can of beer. She was holding it upside down so Katara flipped it to be the right way and pushed the tab open for her. When she put it back in her hands, Toph lifted the can, softly clinked it against Katara’s face, and said, “Cheers.”

As more people began to show up, the party really began to start gaining momentum. On Ji and Song showed up with their significant others and said hi to Katara before they went to the other room to dance.

“Hey,’ Sokka greeted her, behind him was Haru and Teo, the three of them drove to the party together.

“Hey!” Katara greeted them each with a hug. “I’m glad you came.” It was true, she knew Sokka didn’t want to be there but was happy he came nonetheless. Aang arrived on his own, wearing a red, green, blue, and yellow color block collared shirt Toph once picked out for him at a thrift store even though she couldn’t see the colors, Aang saw it and immediately loved it.

Jet came back into the kitchen with his friends trailing behind him. He stood next to Katara and nodded to Aang and Sokka who were standing on the other side of the counter.

“You must be Jet’” Aang said in a cheery voice.

Jet gave a half-grin and said, “I am,” he extended his hand out and glanced up and down at Aang, “you must be a friend of Katara’s.”

“Yup,” Aang said as he shook his hand. “My name is Aang.”

“Nice to meet you, Aang and it’s good to see you again, Sokka.”

“Likewise,” Sokka said without a smile and took a sip of his drink.

Jet pointed his thumb at his friends standing beside him. “This is Longshot, Sneers, Smellerbee, and Pipsqueak.”

Aang laughed and said, “I like your name, Pipsqueak.”

The man intimidatingly stared at Aang for a moment before a smile broke out on his face, “Thanks!” Honestly, the man seemed a little too old to be a university student by his height and stature. His nickname made no sense.

“I like your bandana, dude,” Sokka said aimed at Smellerbee, probably trying to sound cool.

“I’m a girl,” Smellerbee said in a clearly unhappy tone. Sokka didn’t say anything but looked uncomfortable.

Suki soon showed up with some of her friends from the MMA club. When Sokka gave her a greeting kiss, a couple of the girls gave him an annoyed look, probably because they still didn’t like Sokka due to his rude and sexist comments in the past. It made Katara chuckled to herself and she took another sip of her drink.

Zuko knocked on the front door of his sister’s apartment. He drove his motorcycle to the apartment 45 minutes after the time Katara told him the time the party would start. Mai, Azula, and Ty Lee got their invites from various people. Although, probably no one would have even noticed if they crashed.

“Come in,” Azula’s voice carried through the door. The three girls were finishing getting ready and listening to music in Ty Lee’s room. They greeted him as he sat down on her bed.

Mai was applying mascara in front of the full-length mirror. Azula was sitting on the floor, picking the song on his phone. Ty Lee was tampering with her glowing humidifier for the large plant she got from the student plant store.

Zuko pulled his phone from his pocket to waste time while they finished getting ready.

“Mai, you should bring your Prozac tonight and sell it to people dumb enough to think it’s molly,” Azula tilted her head up towards the white paper lanterns and laughed.

The joke made Mai crack a smile as she put the mascara wand back into the tube and dusted off the long black dress she was wearing. She placed a book with ‘ _CAN LADIES KILL_?’ on the spine in her bag. Mai had always been the type to go to a party, complain about it whenever she spoke, and read to pass the time while people danced around her.

Zuko used to like that about her. He still did, but not in the same way. Dating her was fun, but they were both too pessimistic. Ty Lee and Azula did a better job of evening her out with their personalities while still relating to her.

Ty Lee snickered at Azula’s joke. She was tying the laces of one of her Vans and pulled the other on over the fishnet sock with a bow. “Zuko, I heard you know my friend Jin.”

“Yeah, I mean, I don’t know her. She’s come to The Jasmine Dragon a couple of times while I was working.” He responded with a shrug. “You guys are friends?” He asked.

“Yeah! We met this semester. We have a class together.”

Azula stood up from her sitting position on the ground. “Since we’re all ready, let’s go.”

In the parking lot, clicking sounds came from Azula’s red short-heeled boots. Zuko predicted she was going to use them to step on people’s feet as she walked by.

Zuko turned in a different direction to go to his motorcycle. “Do you want to come with us? Mai is going to be our designated driver,” Azula asked.

Mai nodded. Ty Lee grabbed the bottle of vodka from the back pocket of her jeans, held it up, and cheered, “ _WHOO_!”

“No, thanks,” Zuko declined. “I’ll probably want to leave early.” He didn’t plan on having more than one or two drinks.

“You’re no fun,” Ty Lee said as she stuck her tongue out at him. Ty Lee sat in the front seat and Azula in the back. Zuko followed the car to the party location. Luckily, they were each able to find a place to park on the populated street.

The house had already been toilet papered. There were a lot of people outside, including a guy skating around in a bikini on roller skates, intoxicated.

He entered through the propped open front door behind his sister and her friends. This party was a lot more crowded than the one at the beginning of the semester. He tried to listen over the loud music to what Azula was saying, but it didn’t work.

Zuko looked around the dining room at the people standing with cans, bottles, and red solo cups in their hands. He went over his usual routine he stuck to at parties in his head.

Someone must have brought a bottle of spike-vodka and left it on the counter in the kitchen. Sokka made sure to avoid it because it always made him act crazy. Katara had never tried it but thought if it affected her brother so much, it probably affected her the same way.

“Can you fill my cup up with soju, please?” Katara asked, she had finished Ruon-Jian had handed to her earlier and had taken her first shot of soju. Jet had continuously offered to fill her cup for her, but she was trying to drink slowly.

Sokka nodded, “Good call,” he said, referring to the vodka.

“You’re still in here?” Aang asked, walking into the kitchen and grabbing some Oreos, “You should come dance with Toph and me.”

“No thanks,” Katara lifted her hand to take her cup back from Sokka, “dancing isn’t my thing. I’m going to go join Suki in the garage.”

“Alright,” Aang said with a shrug. “Sokka?”

Jet returned from talking with some of his friends and pulled Katara away from the group to kiss her. Kissing him had gotten more familiar lately, she was still a virgin, but she had done other _things_ with him she hadn’t before.

They talked about the party for about five minutes and when Katara was laughing at something charming Jet was saying, they were interrupted by another person wanting to pull Jet away.

The guy put his hand on Jet’s arm, “Hey man, you got any more?”

Jet glanced her way and Katara spoke to him, “well, aren’t you Mr. Popular tonight.”

Jet gave her his crooked smirk, but his eyebrows were pulled together.

Katara waved her hand and took another sip of her drink, “It’s okay, go ahead.” She didn’t want to seem clingy.

Jet nodded and led the guy out of the room and Katara sighed as she watched them go. She opened the door to the furnished garage and spotted Suki playing beer pong against one of those girls Zuko hung out with, whose name Katara forgot. Katara approached and offered Suki a sip of her drink, but Suki graciously declined.

“How did you get into gymnastics and circus performing?” Suki asked and landed the ball.

Katara was wary of the girl in the pink top because of what Sokka had said about her and her friends and their relationship to Comet Corporations, but decided to set that aside for the party like how she assumed Suki probably did.

The girl took a drink from the cup before responding. “Self-taught, I wanted to do something my sisters didn’t do.” She finished the drink and let out an ‘ _aaahhh_ ,’ and then slammed the empty cup back down onto the table. “How about you? How did you get into being the president of the MMA club?”

“I’ve always been into mixed martial arts training and when I got here and found out there was an all-girls MMA club and I joined right away. Eventually, I became the leader.” Suki smiled when she glanced at Katara standing beside her and spoke, “I’ve been trying to get Katara to come to one of the practices with me for a while. She learned _T'ai chi ch'uan_ when she was little.”

“Oh cool!” The girl said while looking right at her. Katara decided there was something about the girl that made her hard to be unlikable. “My friends Azula and Zuko, who I think you met that time at the ice cream shop, sorry about that by the way, both did _Shaolin kung fu_ when they were little which is a lot different, but also kinda similar.”

Katara smiled at her bubbliness and they went back to focusing on their game. It was an interesting fact to learn about Zuko. She spotted the two other girls from his entourage sitting on a busted old couch with all of the seats around them empty. One of them was smoking a cigarette and the other was reading a book. Katara looked up at the ceiling, it looked like someone had taken the batteries out of the smoke alarm.

The girl with the red lipstick that hadn’t smeared outside the pointed lines or got onto her teeth, _Azula_ , made eye contact with her. A smirk grew on her face and she lifted a finger for Katara to come over. Katara glanced at Suki and Ty Lee slowly shrugged and sat by them in the empty armchair.

As Katara waited for one of them to speak first, she looked around the garage and observed the frat guys and soro girls talking and playing foosball.

“You’re the girl from the ice cream shop,” Azula said as she breathed out some smoke.

Katara sat up straighter and looked her in the eye, “I am.”

Azula’s smile curled higher and she put the cigarette out on the arm of the couch. To Katara’s surprise, instead of saying anything insulting, the girl asked about the music playing.

Although Azula didn’t apologize, it seemed like she and the girl next to her who she introduced as Mai, didn’t have any ill will towards katara… or maybe she was acting. Katara understood what Zuko meant about his sister being smart and scary.

Although Zuko had been there before, he did what he usually would at every party he followed his sister and friends to. He started by exploring the area the party was held.

People were dancing and smoking weed in the backyard. Zuko could smell it before he saw it. Two people were making out _publicly_ on the staircase with one person’s hand down the other’s pants. Classy.

He stepped over them and walked up the stairs into the hallway where there was a spilled drink on the floor. Some doors were locked, but still had noise coming from them, meaning people were having sex in those rooms. He circled down the lower level again and passed by the bathroom, which he was pretty sure people were doing cocaine in.

Next on his party agenda was to sit by his sister and her friends and do nothing.

He made it to the garage and opened the door. It was one of the calmer places in the house. The speaker played the music from outside and the blue string lights gave a nice vibe. People were standing around, some guys hitting on a group of girls. Sitting in the far corner was Mai, his sister, and Katara, all talking to each other.

He blinked to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was. He looked around for Ty Lee. She was wrapping up a game of beer pong with Katara’s brother’s girlfriend. The corner of his mouth pinched tighter. He walked past those two and up to the group at the couches.

While approaching, he didn’t know what to expect, but he felt defensive. Katara looked a little apprehensive, but not awkward.

He sat down on the coffee table since any more weight would likely collapse the couch.

“Hello, Zuzu. How was your house tour?” Azula asked. She sat back in her seat with overinflated casualness.

Katara giggled. “Oh, right.‘ _Zuzu_ ’.”

Zuko scowled at her and then at his sister. “Fine.”

Azula seemed focused on the exchange between him and Katara and said, “I almost forgot you two were acquainted.”

That was a lie. Azula never ‘ _almost forgot_ ’ anything.

“We have a class together,” Katara spoke without glancing at him. “I like your uncle’s tea shop.” She said to Azula.

“Oh?” Azula raised her eyebrows and tilted her chin up, “You’ve been to Uncle Iroh’s tea shop, too?”

Zuko looked between the two women he was technically sitting between. Unexplainably, Azula knowing this information about his relation to Katara felt abnormal. He looked at Mai to see her reaction. She seemed uninterested in observing the conversation and let out a yawn.

“Yeah, do you work there too? I haven’t seen you there before.” Katara asked.

The conversation was so non-combative, it was confusing. Surely, Katara disliked Azula as much as she did him. Or were those feelings specially reserved for him?

Azula glanced at him before answering. Zuko sat still, not sure what was happening inside her, or Katara’s, or even his own mind.

“I don’t. My brother is far closer to our dear sweet old uncle than I am. I lived with our father growing up.” The way Azula delivered it made the information sound not personal.

Katara’s face hadn’t changed at all. Maybe Uncle had already told her he raised him. Zuko tried to calm his mind. It wasn’t like she would figure out the rest.

Mai must have noticed his discomfort because she put a hand on Azula’s arm and spoke. “Azula, Ty Lee, and I all went to a different school growing up than Zuko.”

“That’s how we three met: the all-girls boarding school!” Ty Lee and Suki joined them.

Zuko watched as she and Katara looked at each other then both shrugged. Suki sat down across from Katara on the coffee table next to him.

Suki seemed to not hate him, but it could be the alcohol in her system. That or the world had turned upside down considering Katara was talking with Mai, who was keeping Azula in check.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUN FACT ONE: One of the earliest concepts I had for this story is that Jet would deal drugs to Chan and Ruon-Jian. I thought the idea was funny and then was like “Yup, I definitely have to write this fic.”
> 
> FUN FACT TWO: Spike-vodka has cactus juice in it. 😉
> 
> Unfortunately, ya girl’s life decided to suddenly get busy and will continue being busy, so my apologies for not getting this chapter’s sneak peek up in time on my tumblr. Because of this, I’m going to change the update schedule from twice a week to every Friday. I’m really sorry about that.
> 
> I added more aesthetic and reference pictures to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	13. Wish You Were Sober

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My apologies for being a day late. I thought that yesterday was Thursday rip.

Conversations in the group continued. Mostly it was between Suki and Ty Lee, and Mai and Azula. Katara and Zuko joined in when they had something to add.

A guy Zuko recognized from that time at the ice cream shop walked into the garage. He looked around, spotted his two friends, and walked towards them. He hesitated when he noticed who the people that the two girls were around were, but continued to walk right up to them.

“Hey, Aang!” Katara greeted him with a bright smile. “You enjoying the party?”

Zuko looked between her and the shorter guy with the shaved head.

“Yeah, I’ve been having lots of fun,” The guy smiled back. Zuko felt his eyes narrow. “But I should probably head out.”

“Already?” Suki asked.

Zuko stayed silent. He thought about joining the conversation Azula and Mai were having, but he just stayed listening.

“Yeah, I have homework I need to get done.”

“Alright, well,” Katara stood up, “Thank you for coming,” she said as she hugged him. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you later,” he said and then said goodbye to and hugged Suki.

The conversations continued until Ty Lee announced that she had a game she wanted to play. Azula admiringly rolled her eyes and then agreed to play. Mai asked what game it was.

Ty Lee responded that she would explain, but wanted to move to the other room to see if anyone else wanted to play.

“Okay, I’m in,” Katara said and stood up to follow them.

“I would, but I think that it’s time that I go find Sokka,” Suki said.

“You in, Zuko?” Ty Lee asked him.

Usually, he’d say no.

“Sure,” he answered with a shrug.

Ty Lee led them into the living room and Katara convinced another one of her friends to join. Ty Lee invited other people to play the game and they all sat down at the luckily, mostly empty seating area.

Unluckily, one of the people who were sitting there and decided to play was Jet. Katara and Katara’s friend sat on the couch beside him and Zuko took a seat in one of the two armchairs.

“So, the game I wanted to play,” Ty Lee cheerily explained as she stood on the coffee table with a can of beer in her hand, “is Never Have I Ever. The rules are we all take turns saying something we haven’t done and everyone who has done it takes a sip from their drink. So if you don’t have a cup in your hand, go get one!”

The people without drinks got up and went to the kitchen to do as she said. Zuko stuck with his soda. Mai handed Azula the bottle of Fireball and took a seat on the floor next to the armchair Azula was sitting on the arm of. Ty Lee stepped down from the coffee table and took a seat there.

“Okay I’ll go first and start pretty tame,” she giggled, “Never have I ever changed my major.”

A couple of people took a sip. “What are you studying now?” A guy asked Jet.

“Psychology. I don’t wanna get brainwashed by the government.”

“Right,” Zuko scoffed then did his best to play it off as a cough.

The next person went. “Never have I ever shoplifted.”

Zuko surprisingly saw Katara lift her cup to her mouth. Azula was also watching with her brow raised and a smirk. Then she looked at him and raised the other brow just as high.

“Never have I ever tried any drug other than marijuana.” He, Katara, and Katara’s friend didn’t take a sip.

“Never have I ever sent nudes.” Less people took a sip.

“Gone streaking.” Ruon-Jian was the only person who took a sip. He winked at Mai who rolled her eyes.

As the game continued, Zuko was unable to stop himself from checking Katara’s response to every statement. Jet noticed and Zuko had to choose between quickly looking away or glaring back at him.

Katara was enjoying the game so far and she could tell Toph was too. She was already on her second then third beer, the game requiring more sips than she thought it would. Although, she had begun to ditch her rule of drinking slowly and her sips became longer.

During the more awkward questions, Katara would look around to make sure she wasn’t the only one not taking a sip. Toph usually wasn’t either, and the same went for Zuko, although not his sister, who took a sip for almost every turn.

“Never have I ever had sex in a public place,” Ruon-Jian said with a shrug. The people who took a sip were Jet, the guy sitting next to Ruon-Jian, and the girl sitting on his lap.

“Where?” Azula asked. The way she asked questions always seemed to sound more like a command she knew would be met.

“My car at a drive-in movie theatre near my house back home,” the guy supplied.

“The beach,” the girl said. Katara felt envious, she had always thought it sounded romantic. Although, probably not at a public one.

“A concert.” Jet answered, “although the best was making out in a treehouse.” He had a smile on his face as he pulled out his vape pen from his pocket and used it. Katara smiled to herself as people asked what he meant but he didn’t answer. She accidentally made eye contact with Zuko, who was frowning, or at least, not smiling. It was his turn.

He took his eyes away from hers and spoke, “Never have I ever had a tattoo.”

Across from him, Azula whined and took a sip of her drink. Katara, Jet and the guy Katara didn’t know the name of took a sip from their drinks as well.

“Let’s see them,” Mai said from her spot on the floor.

Azula stood up and from pulling up the back of her red silk shirt to show off the red dragon tattooed onto her spine, also revealing she wasn’t wearing a bra.

Katara put her foot on the coffee table and rolled up her pant leg to show off the wave on her ankle and Jet held out his hands in fists to show off his knuckles.

“Wow, cool looking tattoos everyone,” Toph joked.

“Alright, I’ll go,” Jet said, “Never have I ever had a threesome.” The only people who took a sip were Azula, Ty Lee, and Mai.

It was Katara’s turn, she looked up at the ceiling as she thought of one. “Never have I ever lied while playing this game.” Every person sitting on the couch opposite of her took a sip of their drink.

“Ha! I thought so!” Toph leaned forward and pointed to nothing in particular, she was great at telling when people were lying.

“Whatever,” Azula said, “It’s your turn, just go already.”

Ty Lee, who was clearly intoxicated, giggled like crazy. It wasn’t just her, everyone was beginning to look a little more flushed in the face.

“Alright,” Toph reached her hand out to feel for the coffee table and then set her cup down on it. “Never have I ever been able to see.”

She laughed as everyone uncomfortably took a sip of their drink, Katara couldn’t help but smile into her cup at her friend's laughter.

“My cup is empty so I’m gonna go refill it.” Jet said. A couple of people handed their cups to him to fill theirs up too.

Despite some people not having drinks, the game continued. Each time Katara took a sip, it made her think about how earlier in the semester, she wouldn’t have been able to say she’s done a lot of the things she took a sip for now. Achieving her goal was going well.

“Never have I ever had a sex dream about someone while dating someone else,” Ruon-Jian said.

The guy next to him groaned. “Dude, that was one time.” He took his sip as everyone laughed.

Katara blushed and tried not to draw any attention to herself or look at Zuko as she took a small sip from her drink and kept her sight straight forward on the wall at the other side of the room.

Jet returned with all of the drinks in hand and passed them out to the people who requested a refill. He then turned to her and said, “Hey, babe, the keg is pretty much empty so I’m gonna go and buy some more drinks.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Katara offered.

“Nah, stay and enjoy the game. I’ll be back soon.” He leaned down and kissed her and then left and the game continued.

“Never have I ever been interrupted while hooking up with someone.”

Katara thought about the fire alarm as she took a sip.

The game fizzled out as participants became more and more wasted. Zuko made his way into the kitchen to refill his drink and get some snacks. He grabbed a paper plate and glanced at the keg. It didn’t appear to be running low at all, so Jet probably just ditched the game to sell some drugs to the party-goers.

Zuko heard a set of feet on the tile floor and looked up to see Katara had entered the kitchen. She was smiling and nodding her head to the music playing, causing her hair to get in her face until she tucked the pieces behind her ears. Her eyes caught his. With the smile still on her face, she gave him a nod.

She grabbed an empty paper plate from the stack and they both grabbed some of the wasabi chips from the bowl. He looked up from his hands to her face. He learned a lot of new things about the young woman from the game they played. He was still surprised by a lot of them.

“Having fun?” Katara asked with her attention still on the chip bowl. For a moment, Zuko thought she had caught him staring at her face, but then he realized she was talking about the party in general.

“Oh. Uh, yeah,” Zuko said. He took a sip of his drink to calm himself down. “How about you?”

“Yeah! I’ve been having lots of fun. That game was pretty interesting.”

Zuko breathed out a puff of air. “Yeah. It’s always fun to learn whether or not the people you’re playing a game with have ever consumed bath salts.”

“Or been pissed on,” Katara added.

“Yeah, that too.” Neither of them said anything for a second and Zuko expected since Katara had gotten her chips, she would walk back out of the kitchen to find her friends and leave him there. But she didn’t. Instead, she walked around the wrap-around counter and leaned against the silver door of the large fridge, facing him. She began to eat the chips off of her plate. Zuko did the same.

“I’m actually a little surprised my friends all came. They usually prefer to hang out together at one of our apartments or travel together or something instead of going to any parties with a bunch of other people. At least ones like this with a lot of drinking, or else Aang would drag us along.”

Zuko mostly just listened as she spoke, but asked which one was Aang.

“You saw him earlier when he said goodbye to Suki and me in the garage. He’s nice and it’s easy to tell he’s gonna go far in life.”

Zuko nodded and sipped at his drink as she kept speaking.

“Aang doesn’t drink. He didn’t even drink any energy drinks until Sokka introduced him to them to stay awake instead of only drinking coffee or tea all of the time. Suki is dating Sokka as I told you before. She wants to end sexism in athletics and in general.”

“What’s the name of the girl sitting next to you when we played Never Have I Ever?” Zuko asked. He set down his cup and started munching on the chips again.

“That’s Toph. She is nice but hates being told what to do.”

“That’s how Azula is,” Zuko responded.

“Mmm,” Katara nodded, “Your friends are interesting, despite the first impression.”

“Ha,” Zuko said. “I don’t think I know anyone good at first impressions besides my uncle.”

Katara laughed and it made the corner of his mouth lift into something that was the semblance of a smile. He _definitely_ wasn’t smiling.

She still was. Her face was flushed and she had returned to swaying. The only reason the conversation was going well was probably because she was on her way to being hammered.

“You know,” Katara put some chips into her mouth. She waited to finish her thought as she held up a finger until she swallowed. “I didn’t pin you down as the party-going type.”

“Yeah?” Zuko asked.

“I figured you might find them boring or wouldn’t be your scene.”

Instead of admitting she was right about not enjoying them even though he went to them, he turned it. “I never pegged you as the type to go to parties either.”

She didn’t seem upset by his comment. She responded with a sarcastic, “Haha.” It turned into a real laugh.

Zuko admitted to himself he really _was_ smiling as he lifted his cup to his mouth.

Katara was trying her best not to facepalm after her nervous rambling to Zuko. Did his looks and overall demeanor in an unfamiliar setting make her nervous? Maybe a little, but she wasn’t letting it right then, beginning to better feel the pleasant buzz.

She finished her last chip and sat the empty paper plate down on the counter. The fridge felt cold on the exposed part of her back as she leaned against it and she still felt hungry. She pushed herself forward to stand straight and lifted her hand to point at one of the red plastic bowls on the counter. “Can you pass the bowl of popcorn?”

Zuko looked from the bowl of popcorn to her with a smirk on his face. He picked up the bowl with one hand and set down his cup with the other and looked her in the eye as he picked up a popcorn kernel and put it in his mouth. Once he swallowed, instead of handing the bowl to her, he held it closer to himself.

“Hand it over,” Katara demanded, stepping closer. Zuko lifted the bowl and held it out of her reach, his smirk was still on his face, now accompanied with a raised brow.

She crossed her arms and huffed, leaning her weight onto one foot. The memories of when she was younger and all of the times she would fight with Sokka over the last of whatever snack they were eating distracted her and she laughed. She took a couple of steps back and to the side, still facing Zuko.

“Here, toss it to me and I’ll catch it in my mouth.”

“Bet?”

“Bet.” She nodded.

As he picked up another kernel of popcorn from the bowl in his arm, Katara widened her stance. He threw the first kernel and it missed her mouth, bounced off her chest, and landed on the floor. She picked the piece up and put it in the trash and stepped closer to him. “Try again.”

He had his eyebrow raised and even looked _amused_. He threw the next kernel and it landed perfectly in her mouth. As she ate the kernel, she raised her hands in victory.

She was about to tell him to throw another one when Sokka watched into the kitchen with his jaw clenched and his worry lines prominent on his forehead. “Katara,” he spoke, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere.”

“What’s up?” She asked.

Sokka glanced at Zuko with his eyebrows pulled together and then around the rest of the corner before backing her into the corner of the kitchen with his hands on her arms. She didn’t see the point since they were still close enough Zuko could very easily hear the conversation, though.

“I overheard a conversation Jet was having with one of his friends. He was outside the door of the room me and Suki were in.”

“Okay?” Katara drew her eyebrows together, confused as to what Sokka was trying to say.

“I heard Smellerbee ask if it’s ‘ _still a good idea_ ’ and then I don’t know _exactly_ what he said, but Jet responded by saying something along the lines of being able to easily find an alibi and that you would probably back him up.”

Katara shifted her weight from one leg to the other and tilted her head to the side. “When was this?”

“Right before I started searching for you, so I’d say about ten minutes ago at least.”

Katara now really felt confused, Jet said he was leaving to get more beer almost an hour ago and should have been back already.

“I’m not done yet, though.” Sokka continued, “Suki listened in with me and she heard his tall friend talking to the police on the phone.”

Zuko’s head snapped towards Sokka with his brows drawn down and the corners of his mouth thin and narrow, “They reported the party.”

“Zuko, you’re being paranoid,” Katara said sternly, “and Sokka, you’re exaggerating-” Then from the corner of her eye, she looked at the keg and noticed it was far from empty. She got a sinking feeling but tried to shake it off.

Sokka turned to face Zuko, His expression was dark and he looked the most serious Katara had seen her brother in a while. “I also heard Jet mention The Jasmine Dragon.”

Katara froze and looked at Zuko. He was now breathing deeply and his eyes had narrowed.

“I’m leaving,” Zuko said before turning.

Katara grabbed his arm, “I’m sure it’s nothing, but I think I should go too, you know, just in case.”

She thought about when Sokka said he had a bad feeling about Jet and hoped nobody else around could see how nervous she was.

Zuko didn’t care if Katara came with him or not. She was mildly inebriated so she wasn’t likely to be very helpful. His mind was filled with worry about what the hell was going on.

Katara cleared her throat before speaking. “Sokka, just in case the police actually are coming for some reason, you should warn people to get out here if they’re underage and then take Toph and Suki home.”

“Will do.” Sokka was looking at Zuko with narrowed eyes.

As they said goodbye, Zuko was already on his way out the door. Katara caught up to walk at a fast pace behind him quickly. Zuko turned his head and said to her, “My motorcycle is this way.“

When they passed Mai’s car, he grabbed out his phone. He sent a quick text to Mai about the situation and to get the underage girls home.

Zuko grabbed the helmet, swung his leg over his motorcycle, and handed it over to Katara. She had her bottom lip between her teeth and eyebrows drew together.

He was annoyed she wasn’t in her right mind. “As long as you’re not plastered, it’s okay. Just hold on tighter. I didn’t drink much either. We’ll be fine.”

Katara snapped the chin strap of the helmet into place. When he felt her hands tightly on his shoulders, Zuko turned the motor on and sped away.

Zuko had no idea what the fuck Jet was up to. The tea shop was really important to his uncle and Iroh was really important to him. As he and Katara zipped down the road, memories flashed into Zuko’s head causing Zuko to drive even faster.

_“Zuko, I am so glad you’ll be living here with me now, I was beginning to feel lonely. It will be nice to have you around, Nephew.” Iroh had greeted the young thirteen-year-old Zuko with a warm cup of tea in his hand. “Don’t you agree, Nephew?”_

_“Whatever, Uncle,” Zuko grumpily responded. He took the other teacup out of Iroh’s hands before walking into the house. Iroh picked his other suitcase from off of the ground and entered in after him._

_Zuko was silently thankful his uncle didn’t comment on the bandage over his eye._

Zuko had to pause at the red light and it felt like forever. Finally, the light turned green, and the motorcycle passed by all of the other car lights and streetlights to when the large sign with the golden dragon on it came into view.

_“I don’t get the point of trying to teach me this again, Uncle. It’s just hot leaf juice!” Zuko said while failing to brew a pot of ginger root tea by himself on the stove in their small kitchen. He poured some of the contents from the pot into a teacup for Iroh to try._

_Iroh gasped, “I can’t believe someone in my own family referred to tea as ‘hot leaf juice’,” Iroh shook his head. “The Jasmine Dragon will be reopening at its new location tomorrow, Nephew. I thought you would want to work in the kitchen instead of continuing being a server, but,” Iroh took a sip from the teacup and tried not to wince once the liquid hit his tongue, “I think continuing as a server might be the right choice for you.”_

They got to the front of the tea shop and drove around it. All the lights were off and it was hard to see around the shadows on the green and brown sides of the building. Zuko tried to take a deep breath to push some of the anger out as his uncle had taught him, but it felt like it just pushed some of the jitteriness back in. When they got to the back of the tea shop, he heard Katara’s gasp by his ear and then he spotted it: Jet’s Jeep tucked in front of a couple of other cars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Never Have I Ever is a lot more common at high school parties, but at every party at college I’ve been to, there’s always that one bubbly girl or sweet himbo who wants to play that game.😂
> 
> Comment and let me know what you think Jet is doing at The Jasmine Dragon!
> 
> Next chapter will be out Friday.
> 
> I added more aesthetic and reference pictures to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


	14. Bad Idea!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! After this chapter, you are officially half way through the story!!!

Zuko parked his motorcycle at the curb behind the tea shop and turned off the engine. He and Katara quickly hopped off the motorcycle. Katara pulled the helmet off of her windswept hair and set it on the seat.

They went to the white Jeep and noticed the black duffel bag in the back seat. Katara picked it up to find it empty. Zuko spotted a couple of shadowy figures moving close to the building.

He grabbed her shoulder and pointed to the movement. Katara looked at the figures with her lower jaw dropped open slightly. “Maybe it’s not them,” Katara said. When Jet came into view, she bolted over to him. Spotting him seemed to sober her.

“Katara, wait up,” Zuko followed after her. Once closer, Zuko was able to see the rest of Jet’s friends.

Katara was facing Jet, standing near the old bike rack by the back entrance. “Jet, what are you doing here? Weren’t you going to get more beer?”

Her tone was confused and desperate.

Jet ignored her question. He glanced behind her, where Zuko was standing, with eyes narrowed. Then he returned his attention to Katara with a softer look on his face. “Why did you come here with _him_?”

“You should return to the party,” Smellerbee condescendingly rasped.

“No,” Katara snapped, “Jet, what’s going on?”

With a smirk on his face and a toothpick in his mouth, Jet responded. “We’re getting justice, babe.”   
  
Zuko stepped forward and spoke through his teeth. “And what does my Uncle’s tea shop have to do with your ‘ _getting justice_ ’, exactly?”

The douchebags around them laughed. Zuko counted six besides Jet.

“Jet,” something in Katara’s voice changed. Zuko kept his eyes on the back of her head as she spoke, “What’s in your hand?”

Jet’s smirk faltered as he attempted to hide his hand behind his back. Katara lunged forward and from his hand dropped three little tube-shaped objects. Katara pointed at the objects. “I know those! Those are timed hand flame bombs!”

While Katara kept her eye contact with Jet, the others stepped forward like they were about to grab her. Zuko worked fast by showing them he was dialing the police. “ _Don’t_.”

The biggest of them looked to have changed tactics. He shoved Zuko in the chest. _Hard_. Luckily, Zuko didn’t fall backward. He countered the move with a push kick, thankful for his knowledge of martial arts. The rest continued scattering the bombs around. Katara and Jet were still talking.

“What? So you were going to blow up the tea shop? Why even have the party?”

“Not blow it up, these bombs are going to light the place on fire.” Jet answered.

“We needed eyewitnesses and then we were going to blame the party on Zuko and his friends so they would be kicked out of school,” Smellerbee revealed while tossing one more bomb to the building’s underside.  
“You wouldn’t do that… why would you do that?” Katara asked Jet. Her voice sounded watery.

“You would too if you stopped to think. Remember your mom, Katara.”

It wasn’t the first time Zuko heard about Katara’s mother. It caused guilt to rise in his stomach realizing Comet Corp. or those associated did something to Katara’s mom.

The phone in Zuko’s hand stopped ringing and the line picked up. “ _Hello, what’s your emergency?_ ”

Everyone around Zuko, besides Jet and Katara, heard the sound from the receiver and all paused for a moment and then acted fast. 

Jet took a step forward and placed his hand on Katara’s face. She leaned into the touch. Zuko narrowed his eyes at her movement.

Longshot grabbed the phone out of Zuko’s hand, hung up, and then threw it far away from them. Zuko didn’t see where it landed.

“The bombs are placed, let's just get out of here!” said.

“You heard Sneers, let’s go!”

Jet either didn’t notice all of his friends leave or he didn’t care. Katara pushed his hand away from her face gently and sniffed. 

Zuko walked closer to stand next to her. With a glance her way, he was able to see the tears running down her cheeks, even in the dark lighting.

“You obviously don’t know about the old man’s past.” Jet’s nonchalant tone and the way he put his hands in his pockets were irritating, to say the least.

“You don’t either,” Zuko interjected. Nobody really did.

Katara’s tears seemed to be over. “Is this who you are? Someone who causes damage and hurts innocent people? Not every person out there is on the opposite team from you!”

Jet’s smirk dropped back to a serious expression. “I knew you wouldn’t understand, Katara. But I was hoping you were different.” He licked his teeth and shrugged with narrowed eyes. “Whatever, it’s too late to collect all of the bombs anyway.”

Zuko had known Jet had always been a cocky shit. He stepped forward and grabbed Jet by the front of his shirt. Gritting through his teeth, he spoke, “ _When are they going off_?”

Jet escaped from his grip and shoved him away. He held up his arm and checked the time on his worn-out plastic wristwatch. “Any moment now.”

Katara seemed to have some sort of plan in her mind Zuko was unaware of. She quickly and unexpectedly pushed Jet down by his shoulders to the ground. Jet tried to regain his footing and step away, but Zuko helped.

Jet fell to the ground on his knees in front of them. The toothpick fell out of his mouth. Katara locked him into place with a bike lock left against the bike rack.

As Katara clicked it into place, she spoke again to Jet. “Someone’s family doesn’t define who they are.”

Zuko couldn’t help but look and stare at her face as she said that. She glanced at him for a second and then returned her vision to Jet, but maybe he imagined it.

“Should we-” Zuko’s sentence was put to an abrupt stop as an abundance of smoke came up from the sides of The Jasmine Dragon. None of the fire alarms inside went off because all the windows and doors were shut tight. Zuko felt terrified but ready to take action until the smoke began to thin out. There were no loud noises of anything blowing up.

“This smell…” Katara said. Her eyebrows were drawn together.

Jet had the same expression. “Where are the flames?”

Katara glanced back and forth between the building of The Jasmine Dragon, to Zuko, to Jet. Every time she looked at the attractive face of the ‘misunderstood bad boy’ she had spent so much time with as of late, her heart twisted harder and she felt more upset. The only thing that made Katara feel even remotely better was the fact the building was still standing with no damage like it was before, which meant his dumb and reckless plan had failed. Unfortunately, it didn’t stop the bad taste in her mouth or the way she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. The familiar scent was strong in her nose.

The backdoor of the Jasmine Dragon opened, and all three of them startled as Iroh came out dressed comfortably in a pair of slippers, a white shirt, and a tan cardigan sweater.

Zuko ran up to his uncle with his eyes wide and a frantic look on his face. He placed each of his hands on his uncle’s shoulders. “Uncle, what are you doing here this late? Are you okay?”

A line formed between Iroh’s eyebrows. “I was finishing up some of The Jasmine Dragon’s tax return forms.” He waved Zuko off and glanced around at each of them. His eyes stayed at Jet locked to the bike rack for a longer moment than the other two of them and Katara for some reason felt too ashamed of Jet’s actions to greet the man. “What is going on here?”

Zuko snapped his head to Jet.“Did you _know_ he was inside?”

Jet didn’t seem uneasy about almost killing a human being, but he did still shake his head and looked Iroh up and down. “No. I had no idea. We figured he’d be gone.”

“What is going on here?” Iroh asked for the second time. His scowl was more prominent and both of his eyebrows raised. He was looking at his nephew when he asked, but the option of answering was open to any of them there.

“Tell him, Jet,” Katara spoke when the words finally unstuck from her throat and it felt like her lip wouldn’t quiver. Her voice still shook for a bit, though.

Jet pridefully straightened his back with his arms still locked behind him and explained what he and his friends were trying to do. Throughout telling him, there wasn’t even an ounce of shame or remorse in his voice as he explained what he did and finished with the bombs not working as they were supposed to.

“I recognize the distinct smell of the smoke,” Katara added when he finished, “It was the same scent of the smoke when the fire alarm went off in you guys’ building,” she glanced at Jet and Zuko.

“One of the bombs went off in Smellerbee’s room and caused the alarm to go off. We figured it was defective. We snuck back into the building after we got outside and the alarm was still going off and grabbed the rest of the ones stored in Smellerbee’s room before anyone could find them.”

Katara pressed her lips harder together to the point where it began to hurt. Jet and his friends had been planning this since even before then and she was in this daydream of having youthful rebellious fun with a guy she was into.

“All the bombs must have been defective,” Zuko concluded.

Iroh’s mouth was pursed and he closed his eyes as he took a deep breath. He leaned down a little and kept his eyes on Jet as he spoke to him, “Young man, you have plenty to be angry about that my family, including me in my regrettable past, have done to far too many people, but it is not fair to cause potentially even more damage than you were aiming for to the community. That includes the staff working here, the customers, and the neighboring buildings. The anger you hold might end up damaging yourself someday.”

Jet didn’t say anything as he continued glaring up at Iroh.

Katara shook her head, “Zuko was calling the police earlier.” She looked up at Zuko, “Where did your phone go?”

But before Zuko could answer, Iroh spoke. “Don’t alert the police.”

Katara paused. “Why not?”

“This psychopath tried to light the place on fire with you inside of it!” Zuko said as he pointed to Jet, practically fuming.

Iroh sternly spoke to his nephew. “The police officials here would bring him the wrong kind of justice than the kind he needs.”

Katara didn’t understand what he meant, but she didn't comment on it, Zuko tried to protest, but his uncle shut him down.

Iroh leaned back down again, this time to be closer to eye level to Jet. “Although, I _will_ get ahold of the authorities if you attempt to cause destruction again with no aim to create a positive change. Also, if you would ever like a cup of tea, feel free to come by and visit with me.” Iroh then straightened his back and stood back up, “Katara, could you unlock him?”

“Uh, sure,” she made sure to take the keys to his Jeep out of the pocket of his leather jacket before he was let free, she had some things she needed to say to him before he left. Katara turned her head and noticed Zuko scowling at him, inescapably not in agreeance with his uncle’s decision to let the felon walk free. Zuko looked at her for a beat and his expression was just as sharp.

“You wanna talk?” Jet asked Katara, his dark brown eyes she used to find captivating looking right into hers.

“No,” Zuko interjected from beside her.

Katara turned her head to look at his face to see he wasn’t looking at her. She turned her attention back to Jet when she heard him exhale, even after everything that occurred, Jet was still proudly glaring back at Zuko with his chin raised.

Katara sighed and said, “Yes, let’s.”

“My nephew and I will give you a moment alone,” Iroh said, pulling Zuko inside through the back door with him while Jet and Katara took a step away from the door to feign more privacy.

“Do you have anything else to share?” Katara asked Jet, hoping and praying this was all a lie and he was the good misunderstood guy from a troubling situation she thought he was.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Jet answered.

“Jet, after everything you’ve told me… I didn’t think you were the type of person to hurt innocent people.”

Jet’s eyes narrowed and he scoffed. “They aren’t innocent. Did you forget about everything they’ve done?”

“Not _them_ , their family. I used to take my anger for everything out on Zuko too, but-”

“Did you forget about your mother, Katara? Everything your family went through?”

It was the second time Jet brought up her late mother and both times it felt like a slap to the face. She regretted ever even telling him something so personal as her mother’s death.

“Were you using me, then?” She was able to hear her voice rise, but she didn’t care.

“Of course not, I really like you.” Jet responded, raising one of his high arched eyebrows.

“Really? Or did you think I’d help you with your dumb plans after hearing my sob story and shared your own to hook me in?”

Jet’s silence confirmed what she already knew to be the answer and she felt heat in her cheeks and the prickling sensation behind her eyes return but did her best to blink it away and hold off more tears from leaking.

“You’re not the type of unsung hero you think you are, Jet,” She hissed, stepping closer to him, pressing her pointed-out index finger into his chest. Now it was hard looking him in the eye for reasons besides how much taller he was than her. “You’re a revenge-fueled anarchist who doesn’t want to work to make any real change and only wants to rebel.”

Jet went on and defended his decisions and himself. There was harshness in his tone, but he wasn’t angry. Katara couldn’t even focus on whatever the hell he was saying, just on rebuilding everything in her mind that had come crashing down when she first discovered what he was doing. She couldn’t believe she was so blind by desperation to live a normal university life that she almost allowed herself to be an accessory to Jet’s psychotic plans.

She felt his large rough hand gently on the side of her face and she closed her eyes and leaned into the touch, craving the false comfort.

“I’m sorry I deceived you, Katara, but I was doing what I felt like I needed to do.” Jet spoke.

Tears were falling from Katara’s eyes down her face now. She opened her eyes and looked at his tan skin, outgrown hair, and overall rugged appearance. By the half-smile on his face, it was clear she was never going to be able to get through to him. She was now confused whether or not people could change, but she knew Jet wouldn’t.

She lifted her face from his hand, straightened herself out, and punched him directly in the stomach as hard as she could. As he keeled over for a moment in pain, she spoke again. “Jet, we’re over.”

She dropped the keys to his car for him to pick up off the ground as she walked away back to the back entrance of the tea shop. She didn’t look back as she heard the sound of Jet picking up his keys, or starting his car and driving away.

Katara leaned over and placed her hands on her knees to take some deep breaths. The back door to the tea shop opened again and Katara straightened up when Zuko rushed out with Iroh following behind him.

Zuko looked around to see Jet had left with his fist pressed to his mouth. Katara stepped closer to Iroh and bowed her head down. “I am so sorry about all of this, Iroh,” Katara sniffed, her tears had paused for now, but she knew they would be back at some point.

“It’s alright, Katara,” came Iroh’s voice, he sounded sympathetic and forgiving, but Katara still felt guilty about Jet using her.

“I’m going to lock up the tea shop,” Iroh continued, “I’m glad everything tonight turned out alright.” Iroh turned back and went back inside.

Zuko grabbed her arm and pulled her a little ways away to the side, which made her arm hurt a little but she didn’t say anything about it. “Were you in on this?” Zuko hissed out when he stopped leading her somewhere, his nostrils were flaring.

“ _What_?” Katara felt frantic. “Of course not!” She ripped her arm away from his grip and took a step back.

“I knew you didn’t like me, but I didn’t think you would ever take your rage out on my uncle, but I should have realized it when you started seeing Jet,” His tone had sharpened.

Katara watched the vein in his neck throb and all though she wasn’t scared of him, she did feel an overwhelming feeling of aggravation trying its best to cover up her despair. She stamped her foot, “If I was a part of this, why would I leave the party to help you _stop him_?” The party felt like it was days ago, even though it was give or take an hour.

Zuko tightened his lips, narrowed his eyes, and tilted his chin up. “How did you know what the explosives were? They were clearly homemade.”

“My brother has a roommate whose Dad works with mechanics, specifically pyrotechnics.”

“Did you ask him about it for your _fun_ boyfriend? I don’t know what happened with your mom but it would give you a good motive for revenge.”

Katara was right about her tears returning because they had come back now. She placed her hands on her hips and stepped forward with her head tilted up to better meet his glare, “You don’t know _anything_ about my mom or my feelings of revenge tied to her!” She couldn’t tell anymore if she was shouting, but her throat did feel dry.

She was mad at herself that she wouldn’t stop crying and she felt guilty for everything that happened, but she didn’t want to stick around for Zuko to keep yelling at her. “Well, I’m going to leave. Have a good fucking night, I guess, Zuko.”

She sped walked away around to the front of the tea shop and he didn’t try to stop her to apologize and she didn’t want him to. She continued walking until she entered onto campus by the performing arts building and checked her phone to see texts from her brother and others asking if everything was okay. She was cold and tired and it was late, so yeah, she was _great_. She texted Sokka back to see if everything was alright on his end and wiped away her tears as she walked past the dark closed campus buildings, on high alert for any weirdos that might be out late hiding in the shadows away from the streetlights, shivering as she went.

Sokka responded he’d come pick her up and drive her back to the apartment, she would normally argue with him because it wasn’t a long walk, but she felt emotionally drained. She wiped her face on the inside of her shirt before he showed up, hoping it made her look less like she felt.

Zuko watched Katara walk away from their argument. The corners of his lips untightened. He felt an annoying pang of guilt in his chest. Maybe he shouldn’t have yelled at her.

Her face had been red and her eyes were super teary as she defended herself. When she started crying again, it had made him madder for some reason.

Something had felt like she was still on Jet’s side. Then she let him go free.

He couldn’t pinpoint all of the emotions he was going through. There was betrayal and a bit of confusion. The rest were mysterious and hard to define. His emotions had always been hard to sort out. He always wished he didn’t feel as much as he did.

Zuko unclenched his fists at his sides and pulled one hand up to rub at his face. He accidentally touched the corner of his scar and it made him jerk his hand away. He was still looking in the direction Katara walked away.

Zuko felt a small pressure on his shoulder and saw from the corner of his eye it was his uncle’s hand.

“Are you feeling okay, Zuko?” Iroh asked.

Zuko sighed. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He lifted his head back up from the exhale.

Uncle brought his hand off Zuko’s shoulder back to his side. “Did Miss Katara leave already?”

“Yeah.” Zuko turned to better face him.

“Am I correct in assuming the boy here earlier is your roommate?” Iroh’s eyebrows were brought together as he looked up at him.

“Yeah.” Zuko gave a short self-pitying laugh. “Longshot, my other roommate, was one of the people here earlier to layout the bombs.”

Iroh didn’t comment on it, which Zuko appreciated. “Would you like to sleep tonight at my house in your old room tonight, Nephew?”

Zuko didn’t have to consider the question. He missed his old room at Iroh’s place. It still had looked the same from when Zuko moved out. “Sure.” He was so tired.

He remembered his motorcycle and told his uncle he would leave it there for the night and get it in the morning.

“That’s a good idea, especially since it’s not supposed to rain.”

“Yeah,” Zuko agreed, unsure of what else to say. He found where his phone was thrown. Thankfully, it landed in the grass and there weren't cracks or scratches.

Iroh started his car. Zuko hopped into the front passenger seat of the old tan 2002 Chevy Impala. As Zuko buckled his seatbelt around himself, Iroh spoke again. “So, what were you doing tonight before you got to the tea shop?”

“Just hanging out.” He didn’t feel like giving Iroh the details of the party.

There were a couple of beats of silence as Iroh drove down the road and through the neighborhoods. It was a similar path to how he and Katara got there earlier, but it was different.

“Miss Katara is very kind-hearted. You should be extra nice to that girl the next time you see her for me.”

Zuko wondered if Iroh had listened to the conversation he had. Zuko tried not to care as he silently looked out the car window until they pulled into the driveway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damnit, Jet! So... who saw this coming??? And flipping Zuko and Katara, I swear it’s always two steps forward, one step back for those two. Why can’t they just be in love already????
> 
> Next chapter will be out Friday.
> 
> I added more aesthetic and reference pictures to the Pinterest mood board. [You can find it here.](https://pin.it/6lpVd2J)
> 
> Follow me on my Tumblr, I post snippets of future chapters, behind the scenes of this fic, answering asks, and more! [You can find it here.](https://whoissheff.tumblr.com)


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